Mass Effect: Another Illusive Man - The Opening Act
by ME'N7'Fan
Summary: The Illusive Man ordered the creation of Project Emerald Flame, an attempt to recreate Prothean technology that can tip the scales in Humanity's favor, Cronos Station is attacked by an enemy that was hiding in the shadows, and an unknown individual is thrown into this war of shadows, friends are made and lost, history is changed and preserved, and a "Guardian at the Gate" is reborn
1. The Beginning

Mass Effect: Another Illusive Man – The Beginning

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own the Mass Effect series or its affiliated products, Bioware and its affiliates, or any other series'/copyrighted item I may mention.

**Author's note: I would like to point out I this is my first fanfic so please be gentle (send suggestions by private messaging if you have an account here on this site), and I also apologize for any mistakes I make with canon because I do not have all of the DLC so I am going according to the Mass Effect Wikipedia which as you know may not cover all of the minor details in-depth and the integration of non-canon elements into the story may not be perfect but I am trying to keep them at the very least semi-believable. Sincere regards from a fellow reader/writer/Mass Effect fan**

"Talking"- normal conversation will not have any changes

" _Talking_ "-characters thinking to themselves OR are mentally conversing (telepathy, facial expressions, etc.) will be in Italic in normal speech format, written words will be in bold as well

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Ian's POV April 8, 2015

It had been raining for the last two days here in London, that was what an "English Summer" was according to the stereotype people thought of when they were asked what summer was like in England, well not only rain; fog was expected too but right now the aforementioned fog seemingly clung to the London skyline and covered the Thames River in a thick blanket of semi-transparent grey clouds. I really didn't want to see what it was like outside the nice warm cab but, yet all I wanted to do was watch out the window while continuing a conversation with the six foot tall twenty-two year old young woman to my left, not to mention she was the first friend I made since coming to England and probably my closest one as well.

"You know I really hate it when it rains like this, right Sherry?" I had said in a rather depressed tone after turning my head to glance off to my left in order to look at "Sherry"

She had her shoulder length brown hair up in a bun surprisingly, she wearing a worn pair of blue jeans with a new looking black t-shirt featuring a picture from the original Hellsing anime series featuring all of the main characters in a sort of 'family photograph'-esque image with the names of the voice actors beneath the names of the characters (Hellsing was and probably always would be her favorite anime especially since she had seen Hellsing Ultimate sitting in a store she frequented and I, being the generous soul I am, had bought it for her twenty-first birthday which pretty much set the almost hilarious chain of events in motion that led me here with Sherry leading the way) was hidden partially beneath a replica of an N7 leather jacket that she had bought online, her face had no make-up as usual, and her dark green eyes were now staring at me after giving me a quick eye-roll look. When Sherry finally replied after a few seconds it was in an amused tone.

"You know Ian you really should lighten up; after all it is only a light mist for London this time of year. Besides we are going to be indoors at the Convention anyway.", and after she had said that the cab we were in had just stopped in front of an old Victorian style building that was currently holding the event we were here in London for.

The Convention was the second one being hosted by its current sponsor according to the poster sitting in the lobby next to the door clerk, and according to Sherry no-one even knew the name of the private collector hosting it. What they looked like and where they had come from were completely unknown as well; these missing facts had given the Convention a somewhat mysterious air to it as it always seemed to take place on a day with rain, or fog, I felt it was rather fitting considering what I heard was featured last year. This year the Convention was featuring exhibits, vendors, comic books, anime, manga from the last three decades all the way back to _The Creature From The Black Lagoon_ , and the list grew in scope to even include the Mass Effect series, a private showing of the new Halo game that was just revealed at E3 and the unveiling of several other new releases ranging from books to games, and even movies as well. This Convention was also the only thing that Sharon "Sherry" Whitworth had decided to bring me along with because she didn't want to go alone and since I was a fan of the Mass Effect and the Hellsing series', which she wanted me to compete in a contest for the best 'Alucard Impersonation and Costume', which of course was all about who looked the most like Alucard when they were dressed in the full costume, the iconic red duster with matching wide-brimmed fedora, a black two-piece suit, a white dress shirt with a red cravat around the collar, black wire rimmed glasses with yellow lenses, and finally a pair of white gloves and black riding boots; the winner of this contest was going to be walking away with a 1 inch to 6 inches scale replica of Alucard's coffin made out of ebony which featured everything from the inscription "I am the bird of Hermes eating my own wings to make me tame." on the coffin's lid, and a name plaque on the base which was prearranged to be engraved for the winner by the convention's host.

I also never will understand, let alone know where she found out what my clothing sizes were so she could provide me with the costume because everything managed to fit my six foot seven inch height down to my shoulder width, and hat size. She even managed to get the shirt size correct down to the length of the sleeves and the collar size.

While I got out of the cab I watched her pay the driver before looking around and noticed almost everyone was looking at me in curiosity. "Sherry are you sure I look alright? I am only asking because people are looking at me weird.", I asked in a nervous tone because I personally thought I must look like a complete weirdo with my normally short black hair had been grown out to a length that nearly reached my chest since April 12th of last year, after Sharon had convinced me to enter the contest almost immediately after she had gone to the last convention last April which was held by this same mysterious collector, my grey eyes were hidden behind the yellow glasses, and my pointed yet apparently "handsome" facial features as Sherry had told me once when she was helping me tie my cravat because I had never worn one before, somehow fit with the costume I was wearing, and I couldn't help but grin slightly as the cab drove down the street because I had caught a brief glimpse of my reflection in the rear window before it left, what I had seen left me awestruck because with the costume I was wearing I almost resembled Alucard with just two exceptions and they were the Jackal and Cassul, the pistols he carried in both of the Hellsing manga and anime series which I was unable to include for obvious reasons. Just as I had started to think of what might be inside the building this year based off of what Sherry had told me I heard an almost childish giggle slightly behind my right shoulder and I turned my head to see what was so funny and saw Sharon looking at me covering her mouth with her right hand and taking a picture with her pink and beat-up flip phone with her left hand, and to my surprise she actually crossed the five feet between us and gave me a quick hug before moving off to my right again and started to hang off of my shoulder throwing me slightly off balance.

I was honestly shocked that she had given me a hug in the first place because she was not the kind of person to express her emotions physically aside from her facial expressions and body language. However getting a hug from her was completely unexpected; leaving me with a slightly confused look on my face and for some reason I was prompted to ask, "What was that for Sherry?"

Before she answered she giggled again before replying, "Nothing really, you just look so cute right now dressed up in that alright?.", which after she had said that she tilted her head off to the left slightly before giving me a warm smile which made me smile back because she had never said I was "cute" before aside from right now and I couldn't help but wonder if something special was going to happen today to change my life. With those final words exchanged we then went up the short flight of concrete steps to the main doors of the building, which after a short walk left us at the admission desk which was occupied by a man in his mid to late thirties wearing a red doorman's uniform with close-cropped red hair and wire frame glasses who looked rather bored despite being hounded by a group of almost twenty people who were trying to sign in and show their tickets which were bought for entry to the contest and also to claim seats for myself and Sherry in the event I lost the contest.

It was almost a whole minute before Sharon and I were waved over to the desk by a young woman in her mid to late twenties that was wearing her champagne blonde hair back in an oriental style that had joined the desk clerk shortly after we had arrived. When we had gotten up to the desk we were handed a log-book which we had to sign and were told to go in. I knew Sharon had already shown her the tickets but I then the receptionist had told us to go on in when I had noticed I was still holding the logbook and I turned to hand it back to the receptionist when a white gloved hand had caught hold of it and I heard a deep bass voice say,

"Thank you for returning this and for joining us today sir, and I must congratulate you on your costume, it is the first one I have seen today that has the owner's hair at that length."

I followed the arm, which was covered with the black sleeve of a well-tailored suit, up from the hand that had grasped the logbook and caught sight of a red cravat tied around the collar of a white shirt, which was covered by a black vest, looking up from the cravat I was continuing to move my eyes up until I had to tilt my head back when I saw the shoulder length black hair and finally saw the pale face of this very tall individual which was framed by a pair of rectangular yellow lenses set into thin black wire framed glasses and the first thing I thought was " _Please tell me he isn't in the contest too because that suit is pretty much identical to when Alucard checked into that hotel in Brazil._ "

Wwhich of course after my apparently visible look of surprise I heard him say, "Before you ask, no, I am not here for the contest, I am merely here as a judge, and I am also the 'Mysterious Sponsor' behind this convention that I am sure you have heard about by now," then opening the logbook to the page I had signed he continued, "Mr. Stone, and since I already know your name I suppose I should introduce myself.", while he had mentioned introducing himself he had suddenly bowed his head slightly which caused his glasses to slip down his nose slightly revealing something I had never seen before, dark amber eyes, I had heard that it was possible to have them but that it was exceedingly rare but there was something odd about this man's eyes, they were tinged a dark red that closely resembled brown near the pupil and the outside of the iris, "I am James Brennan and it is always a pleasure to meet fellow fans of the Hellsing series,", which he paused again while briefly looking at the open logbook page again before continuing, "and you must be Miss Whitworth, should either of you need anything such as a tour of the exhibits I have brought from my personal collection please let me or one of the staff know."

Then someone off to my right interrupted with a sudden shout of "Sir you may want to find somewhere to run off to, there are some Newsies coming to try and get you to do an interview!", Mr. Brennan had straightened his back up to his full height which I guessed was around seven feet give or take 1-3 inches, but I noted he was looking at where the shout had come from, yet another desk clerk had arrived from the direction of the men's bathroom on the left side of the lobby after which the man called 'James Brennan' had given a very exasperated and heavy sigh before he looked at the clerk who had given the warning and replied with an appreciative nod which was returned with a quick hand gesture that resembled a half-hearted, but respectful, salute from the right side of their head.

We were quickly ushered through the twin doors by Mr. Brennan, the doors were made from what resembled oak in a very dark chestnut varnish with wrought iron handles, once they had been opened Sherry and I got our first glimpse at the hundreds of people inside the almost museum-like interior of the building which was filled with to the brim with what you would expect at a convention like this, vendors, exhibits, a few games, and what immediately caught my eye was where Mr. Brennan was heading, he was heading up to a large stage that was built into the left side of the building which after he had walked about a yard from the door he had turned slightly and gestured to Sharon and I to follow him which once we had caught up he had pointed to the stage and said, "That is where you will be getting your contestant ID number and where you will be handing in the tickets for your seats so I would suggest you hurry because the contest will start in about twenty minutes so if you want to look at any of the exhibits I would suggest against wandering off, otherwise you may not get your seats after waiting as long as you did."

To which Sharon and I almost answered at the same time, "Alright! Thank you for hosting this convention by the way!", to which Mr. Brennan let a crooked grin creep over the right side of his face which was eerily like how Alucard had done so on numerous occasions which had caused Sharon to give a very low gasp of surprise before she gave a quick tug on my right sleeve causing me to ask, "Is something wrong Sherry?", she had then looked up to my face and responded, "You mean you didn't see that grin he gave us?"

"Oh no, I saw it Sherry, I just think he is just a little odd that's all. Try not to think anything of it, okay Sherry?", she had given me a look after that reply that seemed to tell me that she thought I wasn't taking her seriously enough, "Sherry can you do me a favor?" I asked hoping to help lessen her feeling of worry, she decided to simply reply with a nod after which I said, "Sherry if he bothers you too much you let me know alright? You are the closest thing to family I have and I care about you so please let me know if he gives you any trouble.", I had quickly said after giving the now departing figure that was James Brennan a rather worried look, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between him and Alucard myself and there were more than enough of them to cause myself to have a few questions as to whether or not there was a faint possibility that something was for lack of a better word, off about this convention.

The Contest was relatively straight-forward, get on the stage one after another until the audience and the judges saw your costume, then when all of the contestants had done so the impressions were done next, the scene I had decided to act out was quite simple thankfully, I chose the scene from Hellsing Ultimate where Alucard was addressing Sir Integra before going to Brazil, personally I thought I could do better but after seeing the thirty contestants before me I had a fairly good idea about who was going to be walking away with the trophy, it was a toss-up between myself, a contestant from Leipzig Germany and a contestant from Russia who definitely had the height, and outfit to match myself for the costume part of the contest. After a quiet debate amongst the judges which included Mr. Brennan it was down to a tie-breaker between myself and the Russian contestant, what the tie-breaking round was completely caught both of us off-guard, we were supposed to imitate Alucard's laugh from when he was on the _H.M.S. Eagle_ the British aircraft carrier from Hellsing Ultimate. The Russian competitor "Demetri" was actually able to make a laugh that was pretty close to how Alucard's laugh sounded; When it was my turn I decided to just imagine the scene and go for it, and I just started with the chuckle gradually building up to that insane laugh he had the effect was quite visible even amongst the judges and the crowd gathered to watch the contest.

I had just finished my attempt to imitate Alucard's laugh, and I was watching people in the audience to gauge the reactions the judges might have, and judging from the number of people actually shuddering in their seats, or actually cringing from the soul chilling laughter I would guess my attempt was apparently pretty close to the real thing. Looking over to the judges after I had finished I could see some of the judges were just finishing up with their votes but I could see Mr. Brennan's grin and I felt a shiver work its way down my spine when I saw it and all I could do was think, _"Damn-it he reminds me of Alucard and it is starting to really creep me out."_

With a gesture from one of the judges I turned to quickly walk off of the right side of the stage stopping just behind the edge of the entrance to the stage waiting for the result of the judges' votes; looking out at the left of the judges I could see Sharon giving me a thumbs up along with her mouthing "That was so awesome Ian.", and all I could do was stand in the shadows in the doorway and give her a thumbs up in return along with a quick nod and a tip of my red wide-brimmed fedora. Looking over to Demetri I saw he was actually looking at me like I had already won this contest, but being my usual self I held out my hand and said, "That was a pretty good laugh we had huh?", to which he had replied in a heavy accent I couldn't quite place and a rather deep chuckle.

"Yes it was, but I don't mind taking second because I still get the chance to get a photo with the trophy and the winner, as do you, if you end up losing, but with that laugh I seriously doubt you will be taking second today my friend."

During this conversation he had clasped my hand and we were shaking hands. Shortly after we stopped shaking hands Demetri had leaned in a bit and asked quietly, "So who is the pretty face out there giving you all the attention?"

I was honestly a little surprised he had decided to ask about Sharon and I was at a loss as to what I should say, which Demetri gave a slight chuckle and said, "Considering that reaction I am guessing she must be pretty close to you correct?"

Attempting to recover my composure I had given the short reply of, "Yes she is, actually she is my best friend here in Britain, and quite possibly," looking out to the crowd, or more accurately at Sharon, as I was finishing what I had been saying, "…something more if fate allows."

Demetri didn't waste any time picking up on what I had said and replied in a knowing tone, "Ah I know the feeling, this is actually similar to how I met my dear Anna, she is actually sitting three seats behind your friend.", indicating a young woman that couldn't be any older than twenty-four or twenty-five years old with black hair and a very attractive face.

I honestly couldn't help myself from replying, "I hope you two are happy Demetri and it has been a pleasure meeting you."

"Likewise, mister?"

"Oh sorry, I am Ian Stone, I was originally from the United States but moved here to York about a year and a half ago. Where would you be from then?"

"First since you have given your given name and family name, I am Demetri Zolkovich, born, raised, and living in Moscow."

ust as Demetri had finished his side of our proper introductions we both heard Mr. Brennan coming up the stairs on our side of the stage, who gave us both very quick nods of appreciation for our participation and a very soft, "Thank you, both of you have done an admirable job so I have arranged for the rest of our top ten contestants to enjoy a meal at a restaurant across the Thames I attend regularly, and as for you two I would like to invite you and a guest for each of you to join me for dinner after the convention closes for the evening at half-past seven.", with a light clapping of his hands and indicating a small cart that was hidden behind a velvet stage curtain, " Now then let us finish up the rest of this contest then shall we?", and as he stepped onto the stage proper the audience suddenly became very quiet after Mr. Brennan had walked up to the podium on the right side of the stage pushing the small cart with the First Place prize in all of its dark splendor, and a single silver trophy resembling an ornate cross which I had seen in Manchester Cathedral when Sharon had taken me there for a Sunday Service last year before Christmas, which I had spent with her and her family, the second trophy had a small plate on its base which simply stated, with just enough space for a name to be added, "Second Place winner of the Costume Contest as was hosted by Mr. James Brennan."

Mr. Brennan stood at the Podium withdrawing a single black envelope from within his suit's left side, clearing his throat for dramatic effect he began, "Ladies and Gentleman, Lords and Ladies alike I am proud to announce the Winner of this grand contest is…..", at this point he had just pulled the slip of paper out from the inside of the envelope, "Contestant number thirty-one, Mr. Ian Stone!", at this he had turned to his left with an arm raised with his hand open to present the doorway that was previously behind him, which I had walked out of at the mention of my name with my head held high and shoulders straight, stopping just off to his left side within arms' reach. Mr. Brennan turned to produce the faithful replica of Alucard's coffin to me with both of his hands cradling it as if it would break if held with only one hand, gently taking it with my left hand and carefully tucking it into the crook of my left arm I reached with my right hand to accept his right hand, which he had offered for a handshake I whole-heartedly accepted. While we were shaking hands he had called out for Demetri in order for him to receive the Second Place trophy which he had accepted with as much enthusiasm as I had and as a photographer had readied his camera all three of us had posed to have our picture taken with Mr. Brennan towering over Demetri and I while standing in the rear of the picture, Demetri on the right side of the picture and myself on the left. Silently I was thinking to myself about what to do about this trophy for the trip back to York, and since it was already five-twenty-five in the evening leaving us with very little time to actually look around the many exhibits and attractions that were available in this building it meant that Sharon and I were going to be rushing through the exhibits . Surprisingly enough Mr. Brennan had suggested a look at his collection of theatrical props, which surprisingly Sharon wanted to see quite eager to do so especially after I had won the contest.

The collection Mr. Brennan had was quite impressive, masks from several versions of Phantom of the Opera, old play scripts from well-known plays such as Mid-Summers Night Dream, and Romeo and Juliet printed in the 1830's in a cured leather-bound cover, a dancer's costume dating back to Victorian England, and a very impressive collection of masks from all corners of the globe including several from Japan and Africa. By closing time we were all ready for that dinner which we were surprised to learn was going to be held at an Italian restaurant down the street which required a suit and tie, because Sharon and Anna weren't dressed for the occasion Mr. Brennan had offered to purchase appropriate attire for them which they both had attempted to pass on, but Mr. Brennan would hear none of it eventually convincing them to join us so that Demetri and I would not get into any sort of trouble without them while I was somewhat surprised at such a suggestion Sharon just started laughing uncontrollably and accepted the offer finally, after I did a little bit of silent prodding with a few facial expressions, namely the infamous 'puppy-dog eyes', she always hated it when I did that because she would cave in from my inability to get my lip to quiver properly.

The dinner was uneventful and featured an expensive meal and wine was the standard fare for those of us who were able to drink it , namely Sharon, Mr. Brennan and I because we could arrange for a cab to take us back to our hotel, and Mr. Brennan was able to do so because apparently he was able to call his private driver to take him back to his estate. Demetri and Anna had politely declined the offer of wine on reasons of personal preference.

* * *

It was nearly nine in the evening before we had finished our dinner with our host, Demetri and Anna had left earlier at around eight to get back to their hotel in order to get some rest before catching their plane back to Moscow, and Sharon and I had left shortly after the cab we had called for arrived to take us back to our hotel. By morning my trophy was waiting down in the hotel's office, after it had arrived after having my name engraved on the plaque, which Sharon and I had decided to head back to York a day sooner than expected after Sharon had received a call from her neighbor about her cat falling ill, after spending almost three hours nursing "light" hangovers we called another cab and were on our way back to York.

It was a fairly uneventful drive in the back of a black Honda Civic owned by a cab company Sharon's father had been running for the last ten years. The conversations between Sharon and I about what we had seen at the convention and our observations about Mr. Brennan's appearance and behavior were the hot topic for most of the ride back to York, but before we could get to a "petrol station" (a gas station) as our cab driver had expected to stop at to let us stretch our legs a bit and grab a quick breakfast for ourselves at a nearby restaurant Sharon had told them about, the inside of our cab was suddenly engulfed in a bright green light and Sharon, the driver, and I were overcome by a mixed sense of vertigo and nausea which had us slowly slip into unconsciousness.

If there was an observer nearby to watch the scene unfold they would have seen what appeared to be a translucent green pool of light open in the middle of the black Honda driving down the road, which had swallowed the rear half of the car and the front half kept moving forward before coming to a stop and along where the middle of the car used to be there was a clean cut that was glowing a bright pale yellow from extreme heat, and the driver had quickly gotten out of what was left of the car and called the Police hoping they would get there quickly.

Somewhere on Omega the rear half of a black Honda Civic had fallen from almost a meter off the ground and into the middle of an empty street filled after exiting a similar pool of green light that had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. In the back seat there were still two figures held in place by their seat-belts. The figure on the right side which was wearing a grey blouse, and dark red knee length skirt had started to slide forward when she jerked awake in response to her unplanned change of posture. It took her a few moments to realize that both she and the male figure on the other side of the seat were alright and in one piece but the first thing she noticed about where they were was the horrible smell, the refuse lining the street, and that there was no front to the car. It had taken her a few seconds to get her seatbelt undone because she felt light-headed and that her friend, Ian, was covered in sweat, and had become paler than his normal light cream complexion. When she had gotten onto her feet she had already decided to get Ian out of the seat and make sure he was alright, acting quickly she undid the seatbelt and had half-dragged, half-carried Ian over to the side of the street they were on and looked around to see if anyone was around to help to which she was surprised that no one was in sight.

Upon putting Ian down on the ground she tried to gently shake him awake which didn't work in the slightest before quietly addressing Ian, "Ian I am so sorry about this," raising her hand above her head she brought her hand down in a shallow arc two times.

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Ian's POV

I was in darkness, darkness seemingly stained by a bright green afterglow similar to what happens when I had looked at a bright light for too long when I felt something hit my face and I faintly heard someone call my name before I realized I was laying on a hard surface somewhere when I heard, "Ian can you hear me? Ian! COME ON DAMNIT WAKE UP!", SLAP, and before opening my eyes I knew I was going to have something hit me again and I raised my arm to catch whatever it was and caught something that I thought was probably an arm.

Upon opening my eyes I discovered I was on my back looking up at Sharon and she was very scared I was about to ask why when I remembered what had happened and took in our surroundings before I realized I was still holding onto her hand and let it go before I was overwhelmed by a powerful combination of smells, sulfur, pollution, and a smell similar to the stench of death, "Ugh, Sharon where are we?"

I had asked through tightly clenched teeth and a certain pair of gloves I had grabbed from my coat pocket were pressed tightly against my nose as was Sharon's own hand which I had quickly offered one of my gloves which she had greedily accepted and placed under her own nose. Looking at Sharon she had quickly explained what she had seen and what she believed had happened to the car, I had taken the time to look around while she was telling me what she had already seen and what I saw did not inspire hope, it looked like the inside of a massive stone cavern with one big difference, there was a city built inside it, turning to Sharon I had said in a shaken voice, "Sherry is it possible that we are asleep and that we are sharing the same nightmare, because if we aren't is there a good explanation as to why I think we are on Omega?"

She looked at me quizzically but I simply pointed out a series of buildings that resembled a tower hanging from the ceiling of a large cavern with buildings and alleys built into the sides of the stone walls, and the state of the street we were on could easily be what could have been passed off as a street on Omega _._

The only thing Sharon was able to say was a muffled squeak before finally saying, "If we are on Omega I want to get out of here before we meet Aria."

Suddenly from behind us a male voice replied weakly, "If you want to do that do you mind giving me a hand? I have a ride off of this rock and I am not going very far in my condition."

Both Sharon and I had turned to who had said that comment and saw the only other person on the street shuffle in a drunken fashion into the almost nonexistent light from a nearby storefront, the person who had approached us was Kai Leng, but there was a big difference between what he looked like in Mass Effect 3 and how he looked right now. He was bleeding from what appeared to be several gunshot wounds in his left shoulder, and upper arm and there were no signs of Reaper cybernetics on his face. Upon seeing this Sharon had run forward and caught Kai Leng as he started to fall forward from exhaustion, blood loss, or both. While I stood there attempting to come to a decision on what I should do and against my better judgement I walked forward to help Sharon move him over to the wall to his right so he could lean against the wall without injuring his left arm further. While Sharon and I were doing this I had paused long enough to look down the street again looking for anyone coming in our direction, which thankfully was empty aside from the three of us as far as I could tell which worried me beyond belief.

"Sharon do you see anyone?", I asked with more than just a hint of worry in my voice.

Which made her reply hesitantly, "No I don't, why do you ask?"

I replied, "I was asking because I don't see anyone either and I think we should get him out of here right now because when was the last time you ever saw a movie with a supposedly empty street that didn't feature someone getting killed on it, especially when it looks like it normally accommodates a lot of foot traffic?", my reply had caused even Kai Leng to take another look around the street before he spoke in a slightly slurred manner.

"Alright, we need to get to Dock thirty-five, I was supposed to get aboard a ship leaving here two hours from now and I can make sure they take you," while he had said this he was looking at what we were wearing with tired looking eyes, "because you people are obviously not from here otherwise you probably would have shot me for my Omni-tool or valuables by now considering how old your clothes are."

Tto which both Sharon and I looked at Kai Leng incredulously before saying, "Says the man with a top-knot.", surprisingly enough it actually got a chuckle out of Kai Leng.

It was nearly an hour long walk for the three of us because Sharon and I were attempting to carry Kai Leng between us on our shoulders in order to try keeping him from keeling over and both Sharon and I were feeling very tired and were sweating profusely which Kai Leng had noticed from where he was. I was going over my options because I was worried about not so much Kai Leng leaving us on Omega so much as I was having Sharon in the sights of even a single pirate or worse Cerberus if this was in the middle of 2186, or more accurately the Reaper Invasion's little surprise where Cerberus took over Omega, that and I wanted to make certain nothing happened to her.

Kai Leng had given us very detailed instructions on how to get to Dock thirty-five and with a little luck we had managed to avoid drawing the attention of several groups of Blue Suns mercenaries which appeared to be looking for someone judging from the amount of 'Find the Bastard already, Aria isn't paying us by the hour!'s, from back in the direction we had come from and judging from how loud they were getting the mercenaries were slowly making their way towards Dock thirty-five. By the time we had reached the walkway that would take us to the entrance to the docking bay's main loading area for passengers and small cargo we heard people talking around the last turn to the platform, and from what I could tell we were walking in on the middle of a conversation between at least two people using some kind of electronic voice distortion system that sounded similar to what Cerberus soldiers sounded like in Mass Effect 3, with that I quietly said to Sharon, "Sherry stay here with him while I see if those people up ahead are with the Blue Suns or not alright?", after I had said this all I had gotten out of Sharon was a brief nod while she carefully leaned Kai Leng against the wall to her left. While I walked up to the corner I had taken off my hat and tried fanning my face because all of a sudden I had felt warmer than I had been, while I leaned far enough around the corner to see a pair of soldiers in white combat armor with black and yellow trim, _"Well that answers the question of who we were hitching a ride with, now to find out if the Blue Suns were going to be boarding this flight too."_ , I thought grimly and stepped out from behind the corner slowly clearing my throat to get the attention of the two Cerberus troopers which one of them immediately called out, "Hands up now!"

I just stood there while replying, "I would suggest you get over here and help me with your associate because he's been shot…..", after which I was about to turn when I suddenly pitched forward and I seemed to watch the floor come up to meet me, while I was falling I heard one of the troopers start to call for a medical team from the ship and told the other soldier to check on me.

* * *

Third Person/Narrator's POV nearly a day later

In the hallway near Dock thirty-five a group of eight soldiers wearing Cerberus combat armor were helping a group of people in medical uniforms carry Ian, Sharon, and Kai Leng onto a transport heading directly to a medical bay which was similar in size and shape to the _Normandy SR-1's_ medical facility with a group of four people suddenly running up to the soldiers running Omni-tools over Kai Leng first which he was placed on the farthest operating table from the doorway, while two of the medical personnel were suddenly yelling about radiation poisoning and ordering for the soldiers to get spare uniforms from the supply officer and to have one of them help with stabilizing Ian, and Sharon who were now unconscious and were barely breathing. Almost an hour later Kai Leng was sitting upright with bandages over his left shoulder and arm, while he was typing up a report to submit to the Illusive Man about his last assignment he had asked how the two people who had brought him to the ship were doing to which one of the medical personnel, a woman around her thirties with short red hair had walked over to him and told Kai Leng about how close it was, and that they were somehow exposed to an unknown form of radiation but that there were not going to be any long term effects surprisingly.

Kai Leng was now looking back to the two figures which were now covered in plastic sheeting to minimize the risk of secondary radiation exposure to the crew as he quietly said to no one in particular, "Who are you kids? I know you aren't from Omega, and you took the time to help a complete stranger who was shot…", Kai Leng suddenly had a thought although he initially dismissed it had come back unbidden when he was attempting get some sleep and looking over to the two unconscious forms across the med bay he decided to do it anyway, calling to the nearest medical technician on the night shift he requested assistance to reach the transport's QEC array and mentally prepared himself to face the Illusive Man.

* * *

The Illusive Man's POV/third person

In a dark room that was lit dimly with a pale red-orange light from the red giant Anadius The Illusive Man had just finished a conversation with Kai Leng over an uplink to one of the QEC's installed on Cronos Station and he was not pleased with its outcome.

Kai Leng had succeeded in his mission killing several underworld contacts who had refused to follow through with a business arrangement to supply Cerberus with refined Eezo and several tons of black market laboratory equipment, but what had angered him was the fact that Kai Leng was bringing a man and a woman that were around twenty years old to Cronos Station. Unknowns, that was what The Illusive Man disliked about his position, a single unexpected event taking place because someone with an unknown agenda, or an unknown person with an alias and a well-established motive could upset even the most well laid plans and he expected that at least one of these two unknown civilians could do unthinkable damage to his organization if he wasn't careful. The Illusive man was considering just closing the reports Kai Leng had sent which apparently contained the results from the pair's medical scans. It had taken him a few moments but something was telling him to look at the report in depth, sighing quietly he then activated one of the controls from the hybrid Holographic Haptic Interface and opened up a private line to the main dining hall in the section his office was in and requested a pot of coffee brought to his office along with a steak dinner which he was told would take about an hour to be brought up due to the time, looking over to the clock on one of the holographic screens near him he audibly sighed after seeing the time, it was half past noon in other words lunch hour, acknowledging the person taking his lunch request once more he then added a request for them to be prepared for at least a pair of additional meals to be added to the current workload before closing the comm., looking back to the screen holding a holographic cover stating " _Medical Examination of Unknown Personnel on 5/20/2179_ " noting the date was almost a day prior to Kai Leng's report by QEC, he opened the file skipping past the normal medical statistics and looked for the section detailing the radiation the unknowns had been exposed to and was surprised when he had recognized the radiation signature from somewhere. Widening his pale blue cybernetic eyes at the amount of radiation both of Kai Leng's passengers had been exposed to and finding out that they would not be suffering from side-affects was astounding.

The Illusive Man brought up a search program he had written to aid in managing his files and input the radiation signature's profile and set the search program to look through all files Cerberus R&D had submitted as well as all public and government files his organization had managed to acquire. He was just finishing up with the medical file for the unknown male when he reached the section detailing previous procedures they had undergone which was extremely short. He was surprised when he found out that only the removal of the appendix, and the removal of the "wisdom teeth" were the only operations performed, and there were no indications of any of the inoculations Alliance military personnel received let alone what the average human normally would, opening up the file containing the list of personal affects which was archaic in The Illusive Man's opinion, a red leather duster with matching wide-brimmed fedora, wireframe cosmetic glasses with round yellow lenses, a black suit with matching vest and pants, a collared white shirt, red cravat, a pair of white gloves featuring a modified occult symbol on the back of them, a ring with metal keys, a cell-phone that apparently still worked that dated back to around 2014-2015, a plain silver colored fob watch with matching watch-chain and pin, and a black leather wallet currently filled with no less than thirty English Pounds Sterling which according to the serial numbers on the bills were apparently printed at or around the year 2014. Leaning back in his chair he looked at the driver's license found in the wallet, it was supposedly issued in 2014 and was going to be due to expire on the fifth of December if he was reading it correctly, thinking only for less than a second he began to run a background program to authenticate the license before he started another one to look for this Ian Stone in the Alliance's civilian and military databases. While he waited for the results on his search his lunch had arrived and spent almost an hour enjoying the meal as it had been the first thing he had eaten in almost twenty-four hours due to a medical appointment he had in one of the medical facilities onboard Chronos Station to look into his mysterious headache which the only thing the good doctor had been able to confirm so far was that it was nothing easily identifiable and told him to come back on the following Friday for a full medical examination. He had just finished his meal and sent it back to the main dining hall hurriedly and once the person sent to retrieve it had left The Illusive Man opened the file for the woman called Sharon Whitworth according to the License found in her pocket-book, which he was about to start a search for her through the Alliance's Naval database because of her N7 jacket when the results for the search into this person known as "Ian Stone" arrived with a triumphant _deet-deet_ emanating from one of the consoles on the enlarged haptic interface surrounding him looking towards the now flashing light on the projection, he tapped it opening the report and began to read the results he had been waiting for.

 **"A full database search has been completed, no references in the Alliance's civilian or naval databases have been found, further searches have been triggered as per back-up search subroutines, however no individual named: IAN STONE, has been located in any known database fitting this individual's vital statistics. Do you wish to run this search again?"**

The Illusive Man was now quite curious about these two mystery individuals now, while he was setting up the search for Sharon Whitworth he ordered the search program to expand the search to all surviving United Kingdoms' databases for both Ian Stone and Sharon Whitworth and activated the program. Leaning back in his chair once more he heard another triumphant alarm notifying him that the search for the radiation profile had been completed he turned to the console he had set the search on and looked at the file with a look of what could be deemed as shock, shaking himself from his stupor he looked at the two screens holding the images of Ian Stone and Sharon Whitworth and said in a very cold voice, "Project Emerald Flame… how did you two get involved in that little project of Miranda's I wonder?", looking back to the screen he opened the file and began to read the highlighted section.

"If you enter Null Space in the Local Cluster in order to arrive at a location designated in the Omega System you will take a journey that would last up to two months in a standard freighter using the Relays and conventional drives you could arrive in the Omega system in approximately eighteen hours if we use our current version of the drive system on a ship of approximate weight, size, and equipped with the same propulsion systems as an Alliance Kilimanjaro class Dreadnought. Furthermore I am obligated to report the existence of Cherenkov radiation (see attached file on Cherenkov radiation and effects of exposure) and the potential dangers of activating an N-Space Drive in orbit of a natural stellar body such as an asteroid with enough mass to generate sufficient forces of gravity. These potential dangers include but are not limited to the unintentional creation of a direct entrance into Null Space that is unable to be properly closed, possible interdimensional travel (travel between alternate universes may be possible if carefully controlled), and radiation poisoning which is 90% lethal in all simulations and animal testing. As a reminder this prototype is based off of Prothean Artifact No. 3083-18-A81-L located in Vault 37 onboard (Location Redacted)."

The Illusive Man looked down at his wrist-watch and saw that it was almost 6 PM which reminded him that these "guests", as well as Kai Leng, will be arriving in about eighteen hours, which The Illusive Man wanted to be present for the "debriefing" and in a well-rested state so he could have some answers given to him first hand, moving over to the consoles running the database searches on Ian Stone and Sharon Whitworth he set them to send the results to his personal computer in his quarters, then sent a message to Miranda Lawson asking her to immediately check over her project again and set the computer in his office to shut-down completely once it had sent the results to his quarters. Once he had finished with performing the modifications to the information retrieval programs he shut-down the haptic interface and headed to his quarters which was almost an hour long walk using the elevators which thankfully were faster than the elevators on the Citadel but the delay in returning to his quarters was caused from a power failure in one of the corridors which he normally would have used to avoid the normally high foot traffic in the other corridors, however trying to open three sets of hydraulically controlled doors by hand was not something he would willingly do without some assurances. By the time he had reached his quarters it was 7:15 PM according to his watch. Opening the doors to his quarters was easy a quick wave of his flared Omni-tool deactivated three separate electronic locks, and deactivated several security devices inside and after the haptic interface on his door flashed green instead of the normal red a locked door would have displayed allowing him to enter upon his approach revealing a fairly large room with large window providing a view of space and the warm glow of Anadius shining through just enough to provide enough light to allow The Illusive Man to walk inside and turn on an old desk lamp that was connected to an outlet in the top of desk integrated to the wall, looking just to the left of the lamp he placed his hand on a dull black section of the dark grey surface of the desk which had a green light flashing slowly on the corner, after about a second of waiting a section of the desk's surface opened to reveal a laptop of seemingly common manufacture from an Earth-borne electronics manufacturer called Elysium-Tech, a relatively new manufacturer based off on Elysium and yet became one of the Alliances major contractors for military computers within less than a decade, opening the messages he was expecting to see he was surprised to see no mention of the people called Ian Stone, and Sharon Whitworth in any official or unofficial census within the last two centuries, absolutely no mention of Sharon Whitworth in the Alliance Navy, other than a Master Chief Petty officer onboard the _Kilimanjaro,_ but it was obviously not the Sharon Whitworth Kai Leng was bringing because all indications show that she is from York, in the UK and not from New Orleans in Louisiana, in the United States which meant only one thing, if The Illusive Man could manage to convince them to work for him he would be able to deploy an untraceable asset if they were trained properly.

Upon receiving this revelation he decided to sleep on it, after spending a few minutes going through his usual routine checking for any additional messages and ordered the retrieval of half of an old twenty-first century car that appeared on Omega as well as any other objects relating to Kai Leng's "guests" and performed a few changes to his schedule for in the morning to allow for the debriefing of Sharon Whitworth and Ian Stone, then upon thinking further on the subject at hand, he cleared his schedule for the next few days, he doubted that they could have any sort of training in resisting interrogation but he was concerned about the volume of information they may have or what they have learned about his organization. Those thoughts troubled him right up until a persistent headache he has had since his time on Palaven after the First Contact War (or the Relay 314 Incident as the Turians called it), moving over to the medicine cabinet in his quarters' bathroom he picked out a mild sedative he had been prescribed by one of the medical staff onboard Chronos Station before he went to bed, thinking aloud before he closed his eyes, "I wonder, do these two 'guests' of Kai Leng's have anything to do with Miranda's little project out at Minuteman?"

* * *

Third Person POV

Cerberus Transports like the one Kai Leng now stood in the crew quarters of a heavily modified Kowloon class freighter which instead of the normal single deck it was redesigned to instead use a pair of decks as well as a third deck on the Bridge and Engineering sections which were easily modified to conceal guardian laser batteries and in the Bridge area a suite of advanced electronic warfare equipment and advanced sensors designed to detect any kind of occurrence from a mass effect field changing its output to a small speck of stellar debris somehow being thrown through a Relay, to Cerberus it was a major advancement in their black ops division, but right now Kai Leng was more worried about the female passenger, now known to be called Sharon Whitworth according to her supposed identification card.

she had just woke up from being chemically flushed of radiation and was now attempting to wake up the second passenger, a one Ian Stone; both of them had helped him get to this transport on Omega and he was taking a major risk by just having them brought onboard this freighter because of Sharon Whitworth's supposed connection to the Alliance's N7 special operations, however he doubted that connection completely because she did not carry herself in the same fashion as other N7 operatives, let alone the fact that she was far too young to be an N7 because they usually require several years in the Alliance Navy in order to be considered for the N7 program for just the level of field experience they were expected to have.

Grimacing he remembered the hell that he was put through before receiving his N7 designation and the fight on the Citadel that ended it all, banishing the thoughts from his mind again and taking a steadying breath he cleared his throat to get the attention of this Sharon Whitworth, which surprisingly enough he did and so he started in a calm tone, "Miss Whitworth please step back from Mister Stone he still needs his rest…"

"Don't tell me what to do!"

He was caught off-guard by the sudden outburst of anger that was directed toward him. He stood there stunned for maybe a second before he saw the still figure of Ian Stone begin to stir slightly and heard a muffled "Ugh… my head Sherry have we been out drinking that Lager from Sullivan's private stock again? My head feels like we have because everything is kind of fuzzy yet."

"Ian oh my god! Are you alright, do you hurt anywhere?"

"Sherry please calm down and… wait. Where are we?"

Kai Leng sensing his opportunity to talk to someone who was level headed albeit somewhat dazed he said in a calm voice, "You Mister Stone are onboard the privately owned freighter you brought me to and I have had the radiation you were exposed to flushed from your system and which according to the medical personnel onboard you two are extremely lucky."

Noting Ian Stone was going to say something he stopped so he could hear him from almost two meters away and surprisingly enough Ian Stone had motioned for Sharon Whitworth to lean in towards him, which Kai Leng barely heard Ian converse with her in a hushed tone which he hadn't heard Sharon's reply but he did hear Ian, "Sherry please tell me that isn't Kai Leng…"

Kai Leng straightened his back involuntarily because he realized he had never told either Sharon, or Ian, his name which set alarms off in his mind and he was very concerned because if they know who he is what kind of information do these two have on Cerberus, Kai Leng was thinking grimly, _"If they know who I am I wonder what else they know because if they know my name then they almost certainly know about who I work for, although… that isn't necessarily a bad thing because if they will work for Cerberus and by extension The Illusive Man they could be almost untraceable assets."_ , Kai Leng's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the announcement that they were approximately an hour out from Cronos Station which he noticed both Ian and Sharon tense up visibly which made Kai Leng raise an eyebrow in slight amusement at their surprise but then he thought, _"I wonder if they know that Cronos Station is where we are headed?"_ , sighing momentarily he decided that he would ask Sharon later because she appeared to be the most easily coerced into disclosing information when pressed, which meant she would have to be interviewed after they knew they couldn't get information from Ian. Kai Leng then looked to Ian who was now slowly getting up from the bed and was silently appraising him in his mind, _"Hmm a tough person to read for once, withdrawn yet confident but according to his body language near Miss Whitworth she obviously is important to him so that is a way to acquire information from him obviously, no obvious physical maladies such as a sprain or other injury to exploit for leveraging information through physical pain, however the way he acts indicates he may have information on our organization or at least myself so I need to keep an eye on him, now about Miss Whitworth."_

Kai Leng then looked over to Sharon out of the corner of his eye after she had moved over to the main entrance hoping to apparently leave, _"she on the other hand is far too easy to read through her body language, timid and shy but not easily intimidated, she keeps her distance from Ian even though she always seems to lean towards him indicating she has feelings towards him but she chooses to avoid showing her emotions outwardly to most people and finally she seems to also have quite a bit of information about our organization so the question is who will crack first Miss Whitworth or,"_ looking back to Ian who is now on his feet and looking at Kai Leng in an appraising manner of his own, _"him? Well, well, well, this is interesting he has been observing me while I was watching Miss Whitworth, at least he is smart to do so when I am not watching otherwise I would have masked my thoughts better."_

Kai Leng stood there for a few moments not moving or speaking just staring back at Ian who suddenly had a wry smile plastered on his face and slowly shook his head slightly and started to walk past Kai Leng but before he passed him he said to him softly, "You know Kai Leng I would suggest you don't try to get information out of her by threatening me or her directly, mostly because the last person to threaten her physically ended up waiting for their bones to knit in a hospital for nearly two months, besides I would tell you and The Illusive Man information if either of you asked… _politely_.", after Ian had said that his smile only grew wider but it was hidden from Sharon in such a manner that she didn't see or hear Ian speak to Kai Leng at all which indicated to Kai Leng that he had an agenda which he was not sharing with Sharon and that made him wince slightly behind the visor-like eye-display he was wearing, he had opened his mouth to reply to Ian but before he could he was interrupted by the ship's intercom, "Attention all hands we will be docking in 45 minutes."

Kai Leng heard a sigh escape from Ian who asked in a somewhat resigned manner, "So Kai Leng, any chance my friend and I can get a quick shower before our little meeting with your boss?"

"Sure, and I can order tea and biscuits for you two as well."

Ian looked at Kai Leng with a look of disappointment tinged with amusement before replying, "You know Kai Leng sarcasm doesn't suit you at all."

* * *

 _Ian's POV_

It was a surprise that both Sharon's clothes as well as mine were cleared of whatever radioactive materials we had been exposed to, while we were unconscious in the medbay, so at least we would be able to avoid wearing unfamiliar clothing we needed to break in. We had just gotten off of the ship and were told to wait in the airlock for an escort, why they wanted one for us when Kai Leng was already doing so was completely unrealistic.

I couldn't help but think to myself when I saw the inside of the airlock, _"So this is the inside of the infamous Cronos Station? I think I like it better when it was just a bunch of pixels in Mass Effect 3 because it looked way better trashed all to Hell."_

I just couldn't believe my luck I went from the gutters of Omega to the halls of Cerberus' secret headquarters and all thanks to a mishap that left me irradiated, tired, cranky, and above all anxious to use my least favorite option, convince Jack Harper AKA The Illusive Man to hand over partial control of Cerberus just so I could try to save a few lives, or my favorite option work with them until Shepard was up and about after Lazarus and stick him/her them all the way to the end, honestly the second option was far more appealing because I could prepare a few surprises for good ol' Harper including a coup' of my own by weeding out disloyal Cerberus personnel and organize them although I do have more than those two options.

Pausing momentarily in my thoughts I couldn't help but wonder, " _What kind of Shepard am I going to have to work with anyway? A Paragon, a Renegade, male, female, 'sigh' I suppose it doesn't matter that much as long as there is one that saves lives does it?"_

It was just when I had reached the end of my internal dialogue the inner airlock doors opened to reveal a squad of five Cerberus troopers with the one in the lead wearing Centurion armor and a modified Mattock resting in their arms rather casually, that in of itself told me that we were not their top priority at the moment which meant something was going on somewhere else.

"So it is time to go for a REALLY long walk then I guess, huh Kai Leng?", to which I saw Kai Leng, who had been leaning on the wall opposite of me working on his Omni-tool just raise his head a little and give a slight grunt before saying;

"Well according to what I just read, yeah, it is going to be a very long walk to where you are going, miss Whitworth on the other hand is going to some guest quarters we have set aside for her…"

"Guest quarters? You mean prison cell?", and I was surprised when he shook his head slowly and repeated what he said albeit paraphrased;

"GUEST QUARTERS, on this side of the station actually," looking at his Omni-tool again he then added, "and according to my Omni-tool we have about twenty minutes before you are supposed to be in my boss's office so I could let you see them first, however," he paused again looking directly at my eyes, "you will have to ask me _nicely_ instead of going out of your way to annoy me like you have been trying to do.", the way he had said it told me he actually meant it.

"Heh, Kai Leng, you have a deal I suppose.", I then added in a polite tone while hiding my hands behind my back in such a way so as to give the impression of clasping them behind my back instead of revealing the fists I was making while I spoke, "Kai Leng will you please take us to see these 'guest quarters' that your employer has been so kind to have set aside for Sharon?", and out of the corner of my eye I saw Sharon visibly stiffen and turned her head at me slightly while giving me a look that said, "Ian, what the HELL are you up to?", and all I did was turn slightly to my right towards the airlock which Kai Leng took as a signal to head to the guest quarters and walked slowly so Sharon was able to catch up to me but before she could lean in to ask me what I was up to verbally when I just tilted my head slightly to my left and quietly said;

"Sherry, right now I want you to remain calm and just relax because I am going to see if I can't get some help in getting either you or both of us home because honestly I don't want you here if things go sideways, and another thing. What do you know about Cerberus before Mass Effect happened?"

Sharon looked at me as if I was asking her a stupid question before she said, "Well Cerberus is a pro-human terrorist group isn't it?"

"Yes, keep going Sharon."

"Well they were founded by…", Sharon looked around and leaned in _very_ close to my left ear and said "Jack Harper, an ex-Alliance operative or something like that, look Ian, I really don't see what you are asking me these questions for."

"Sherry, one moment. Hey Kai Leng what is the date anyway!?", Kai Leng turned his head slightly to his right and replied;

"Well let's see it was Saturday yesterday so… it is the fifth of June 2179. Why do you want to know, wait… did you lose your Omni-tool _Ian_?"

"Don't say my name like that you son of a b-" suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and I realized I apparently was not thinking to myself like I thought because I heard Sharon say in a soothing tone;

"Ian calm down he is just trying to get under your skin, can't you see that?"

I just chose to reply to Sharon as best I could, "I know Sherry.", sighing quietly I started again, "As I was going to say to you earlier, it is 2179 almost four years before the events of Mass Effect and that means that this is a point in time which can supposedly be manipulated _carefully_ it could be possible to prevent a lot of lost lives, I am not saying it is the right thing to do, however, it is better than doing nothing. What do you think Sherry?"

"Ian that is _very_ dangerous thinking because if we cause a even a small change we could cause even more people to die."

"Sherry, I know, which is why I was thinking about Cerberus, seriously think about it, this organization doesn't even show up on Shepard's radar until the first Mass Effect because of those projects they were working on which could be prevented in the first place, and this entire organization could be redesigned, and redirected towards a role more befitting its namesake, this organization could be 'The Guardian at the Gate' that Harper created Cerberus for in the first place, besides I don't believe he is under the control of the Reapers by now anyway."

Surprisingly Sharon was thinking over my rather insane suggestion rather carefully before she continued our conversation, "How do you intend on working around _him_ anyway?"

"Who, The Illusive Man?" Sharon simply nodded to me quietly so I just replied, "Well the thing is if he isn't under their control already or we are arriving early enough we could find a way to get him to either step down or prevent him from being manipulated further, which both of those are fairly easy to accomplish, on the other hand," looking around quickly to make sure none of our escorts weren't close enough to hear us, "there is always the mutiny option, and even working with them up until Shepard is up and about after Lazarus is preferable to doing nothing because we could sabotage Cerberus and its projects easily enough with what we know."

With my last comment Sharon suddenly stopped and was looking at me with slightly wide eyes before she looked over to her right and she said quietly, "Ian something is wrong, can you ask for a table I could borrow for a bit?"

I couldn't help but look at her with a worried look in my eyes before asking her, "Sherry is this another one of your 'bad feelings'?", and after I had asked her that she nodded slowly which answered my question all too well, reminding me of when I had gotten that cold feeling in my stomach when my I lost several friends in a car crash. "Alright Sherry, one moment.", looking back over to Kai Leng who had stopped our escorts, who were now looking at us as if we were planning on running off somewhere, "Kai Leng, is there a table Sharon can borrow?"

Kai Leng had raised an eyebrow at my request before pointing to a door on Sharon's right which we approached and it opened once we were within a couple of meters from it revealing a lounge with a view of part of the red star Anadius on the right side of the large window, revealing a dimly lit bar counter, several booths arranged in a horseshoe pattern to fit the walls and tables scattered in the spare floor space, and Sharon calmly walked over to the table closest to the door and pulled a small wood box covered in etchings depicting a Elizabethan garden from her N7 jacket's pocket, I always knew she had carried them in there but the look on Kai Leng's face suggested he hadn't even bothered to check her jacket's pockets for some reason, he was about to make a gesture to one of the soldiers but I looked at him and calmly shook my head in a slow manner stepping aside to let him see what Sharon was doing and he had paused just short of giving the silent command to move in, he and I were watching Sharon open the box withdrawing a deck of old Tarot cards. Kai Leng sent me a questioning look which I simply replied with a finger raised to my lips in a quieting gesture and gave a slight shrug in my shoulders afterward, while Sharon pulled a few cards from the top of the deck. According to what I knew about the Tarot you were supposed to use a certain number of cards but Sharon used however many she felt she needed to see, and she only pulled three, to me they were just cards and the "gift" as she called it was different in every individual, I myself had had a few instances of déjà vu which I knew to trust on several occasions during my previous job experience as a "personal security expert" aka semi-professional gardener with a knack for finding missing items and locating people of… questionable character for the local constabulary on the side.

I risked a look over at the cards she had drawn and flipped over, The Tower, The Ace of Swords, Death, _"Well this is just dandy isn't it? The Tower, the Ace of Swords, Death... this means what then? Wait, The Tower… Chronos Station possibly, but then what is the Ace of Swords then? Could it refer to Kai Leng, Harper, me, maybe something else I wonder? Death is fairly self-explanatory, it means death in the physical sense or metaphorical, life or rebirth, and change in life when it does show itself in the Tarot ,at least as far as I understood from what Sharon had told me."_ Dismissing the thoughts from my mind for now I instead focused on Sharon looking for some indication as to what she saw in the cards and what I saw was Sharon, and she was shaking when she saw the Death card and just as I was about to ask her what was wrong she gathered her cards up and put them in the box and quickly shoved it back into her jacket and walked quickly back into the hallway. Before I could try to say anything to her, she had wrapped her arms around me in a manner that left me shocked, she was holding onto me as if she was afraid I was going to leave her. All I could do was stand there dumbstruck and place one hand on her back and the other on her head and gently brushed her hair saying;

"Sharon everything is alright I'm here, I'm right here, don't worry.", and I heard a muffled reply,

"I know Ian just, please don't ask me what I saw, just please don't ask me.", I was still stunned so I did the only thing I could,

"Alright Sharon if you want to talk just remember I'm here for you," removing my hand from her back I gently lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes, "please remember that no matter what happens, alright?", and all she did was give me a solemn nod before she looked over to Kai Leng and asked him to have someone take her to the guest quarters.

Kai Leng had a confused look on his face which vanished just before he nodded to the soldier in Centurion armor which he motioned to Sharon for her to follow him, and as they walked down the hallway they took a left at an intersection.

Kai Leng then looked at me and asked with a cold demeanor, "What was that about?", and I decided to tell him what cards she had drawn,

"The Tower, The Ace of Swords, and Death, Kai Leng, that is all you, and I, need to know."

After my reply he simply looked at me with an expression that told me he was not satisfied with my answer before ending the conversation with the statement, "We need to get you to my Employer before he becomes impatient mister Stone."

We were walking down a hallway with windows on the left side overlooking a large empty space near the Illusive Man's office if I remembered correctly from Mass Effect 3. In my mind I knew what I said in the next few minutes was going to decide Sharon's fate as well as mine, up ahead was the set of sliding doors I knew opened to a ramp with another set of doors before I meet face to face with HIM, The Illusive Man, Jack Harper, the poor bastard who lost everything during the First Contact War, I honestly pitied him because of what had happened on Palaven, he lost two people who were friends and co-workers, and from that day forward he might have been manipulated into even creating this organization by what I could only assume was a Reaper Indoctrination device, but that was as far as that pity went, from this point on he was exactly that Jack Harper or The Illusive Man depending on how this played out.

Taking a deep breath at the foot of the ramp I then proceeded to walk forward towards that last set of doors. I couldn't help but notice that there was only one person walking behind me, turning my head to the right so I could glance behind me I saw Kai Leng walking about two feet behind me with my curiosity appeased I looked forward toward the final set of doors again which opened at our approach giving me my first glimpse at The Illusive Man in person, he was wearing his trademark business suit, his normally serious looking expression, and there was a small table to his right with two glasses and a decanter of what I had to assume was scotch, bourbon or some other kind of amber colored alcohol, and in front of the table a single seat set so whomever sat there had a view of the sun and by extension him to the right, and to the left the door I was entering. When Kai Leng and I were about halfway to the empty chair the door closed and the green lock indicator flashed an angry red telling me that I was not leaving until The Illusive Man said I could which was fine by me at this point, I didn't want to leave until I was sure of Sharon's safety. Looking at The Illusive Man again I bowed slightly at the waist letting my hair fall forward slightly before uttering a greeting,

"I would like to introduce myself properly before we begin, I am well aware of Kai Leng mentioning my name by now however I feel it is only polite, I am Ian Stone and I cannot decide if it is a pleasure to meet you in person or not yet, considering this is not the kind of meeting I was hoping for."

The Illusive Man looked off to the side where the chair was and indicated I should take a seat before he replied, "I see. What kind of meeting were you hoping for then? One over a very long distance maybe?", he had added with a hint of sarcasm which did not go unnoticed by me, thinking for maybe a second before I walked calmly to take the offered seat before he withdrew the offer. I smiled slightly as I made my way to the offered chair and let out a slight chuckle.

While I was taking my seat I kept my eyes on The Illusive Man which in hindsight was a mistake, however I felt I could trust Kai Leng to not do anything without orders from him explicitly, as I was in the process of getting comfortable on what was I had to admit was probably a very expensive, yet simple, hard backed office chair, I replied to his question very calmly saying, "No, I was just hoping for a nice polite, and private, chat in a very,", indicating the room with my right hand by panning it around the room, "comfortable chair and a friendly atmosphere with no prying eyes or ears aside from yours, Kai Leng's, and whatever cameras and auditory recording devices you have installed here, Mr. Harper."

I was hoping for maybe a sharp intake of breath from him or something to indicate shock at the revelation of The Illusive Man's name however the only reaction I received was from Jack Harper, and that was just a blank look which quickly took on an aspect of anger at the realization that I had just revealed that I knew his last name, which told him just how much I may actually know about him specifically, as well as the fact that Kai Leng now knew his _REAL_ name.

"Do you want to explain how you know my name Mr. Stone?", the rage in his voice was barely hidden at this point and I just sat there waiting for him to calm down somewhat before continuing the conversation.

"Well the same way I know Kai Leng was an N7 graduate up until he killed a Krogan using his service blade." I had said in a careful and level tone while looking quickly at Kai Leng as I made that statement, "Which, I might add, brings me to my first question in this meeting of ours.", looking back to Jack Harper I continued, "Tell me Mr. Harper, what would you do if I told you I could offer you information which could prevent further deaths or fates like Ben's or Eva's?", the question was apparently enough to soften the rage somewhat and was replaced with the impassive look I was used to seeing as Jack Harper seemed to calm down at the mention of information being volunteered,

"I would ask what the price is of course, then I would ask for the information. Now why don't you tell me something I want to know before we get started properly..." Harper had a threatening look briefly reveal itself in his features, "How do you know my name?"

I couldn't help but reply calmly despite the cicumstances, "I read it in a book of course."

In response Jack Harper leaned towards me slightly and said just one word, "Bullshit."

"I assume you have tried to run a background check on myself and Sharon by now correct?", both he and Kai Leng nodded, "Well, you know I don't have an identity by now then, I also apparently do not have any form of public record, no Omni-tool, no mass effect or Eezo based technology on my person, and," looking Jack Harper in the eyes, "you also probably checked with the 'Broker by now as well and turned up absolutely nothing correct?"

Kai Leng suddenly caught my attention from the corner of my eye by involuntarily straightening his back in surprise at the very suggestion that the Shadow Broker was unable to find information on someone, and Harper simply sighed and nodded looking much calmer than he did before for some reason, "Yes, you are correct Mr. Stone, now what do you know about this supposed threat then?"

"This potential threat as you call it is very real, and _very old_ , it is the same threat that left that little artifact you saw on Palaven Mr. Harper."

At the mention of Palaven and the monolith he had encountered Jack Harper leaned back in his chair and seemed to be digesting the information I just told him before replying, "So you mean to tell me a threat, potentially thousands if not _millions_ of years old is going to reemerge?"

"Yes, I am, and you were there to see what just _one_ monolith could do, imagine what more of them can do to this galaxy. Now imagine if you will," leaning slightly forward in my chair, "that you have a chance to stop an extinction level event on a galactic scale caused by the _creators_ of those monoliths."

After I had said that last sentence Jack Harper shook his head and smiled wryly as if I had told him a bad joke before saying, "You are insane, there is no way there were more of those _things_ out there other than on Palaven."

I could already tell that my first argument was dead in the water. Thinking quickly I decided to mention something I shouldn't, "So you think that I would lie about something so obviously insane? Okay, see you in about," looking up to the ceiling as if I was in thought, "let's see it is, 2179 you said, correct Kai Leng?"

"Yes I did, what does that have to do with it?"

"Well basically in about four years from now all Hell is going to break loose on a certain Alliance controlled colony in the Traverse, and I will be proved right regardless of what happens here today. Do you really want to throw away even the slightest hint of danger based on the possibility that I am insane?"

Jack Harper sat there for a moment unmoving and utterly silent before asking, "Four years you say? What exactly happens in four years?"

"Nothing much, just a Geth incursion resulting in an attack on a Human colony that found an intact Prothean Beacon at an archeological dig, and… oh yeah, the first HUMAN Spectre is recruited and placed in charge of the Normandy SR-1 to go after a rogue Spectre which I _will not_ name."

With the end of my last sentence Jack Harper's face was still an emotionless mask until what I had said sunk in, and when it did his face then acquired a look of concern which he raised an eyebrow in confusion and disbelief before he asked, "How do you know about the Normandy Project?"

However before I could reply an alarm sounded making all three of us look at each other in various states of surprise and mine was the worst because I knew that I was several years too early for this to be happening, "What the Hell is going on?", I asked while trying to remain calm as I hurriedly got up out of my seat while Jack Harper was attempting to access the security network to get a report.

Then Kai Leng did something I did not expect, he tossed me an old Predator handgun from somewhere on his person making Jack Harper demand, "Kai Leng what are you thinking giving him a gun?!"

"I am thinking sir, that if he is in fact here and willing to work with us he only has _one_ pistol and I can take him down before he can hurt anyone."

"Fine,", looking at the Haptic Interface he had activated he said to Kai Leng, "a security detail on deck 20 found a dead maintenance worker, he was killed by a single gunshot to the back of the head and from the angle it was up close and personal, and…", Jack Harper looked at me when he seemed to think about saying something when he just shook his head and said, "Miss Whitmore is missing, and according to the security detail that found the bodies of the guards I had watching her quarters we have at least two intruders on deck 40 and they probably have her.", Kai Leng looked at Jack Harper and asked what his orders were while I just stood there as time seemed to stop.

* * *

"What the Hell do you mean she is missing HARPER!?" I asked with rage slipping through my previously calm if not surprised appearance, to which both Jack Harper and Kai Leng looked at me with an indifferent expression.

Harper blinked once before rising from his chair, and tapping a seemingly random button twice on the Interface floating nearby, in less than a second several ceiling panels slid upward disappearing from view behind neighboring ceiling panels, while a pair of weapon racks holding a variety of weapons I recognized including at least four or five Mattocks, Talon handguns, Hornet submachineguns, and what looked like a pair of Dragoons dropped down from the ceiling on several hydraulic arms while Jack Harper moved over to the rack with the Mattocks throwing the top of his suit's over the chair I had previously occupied before picking up one of the Phalanx pistols and loaded it with an ammo block and in a somewhat rushed manner said, "I mean Mr. Stone, that my organization is under attack by unknown hostiles, and as far as I can tell you and miss Whitmore are the only reason they _could_ be here aside from wanting me dead, and taking our research, as to how they are here, I have no idea other than they have access to resources similar to my organization and a ship with an IES Stealth System, which was supposedly _impossible_ until the Normandy was built or until the IES Stealth System's blueprints were in our hands." then looking at me while switching its safety off while it was folded and placed it on the chair. Almost immediately after placing the Mattock on the chair he grabbed one of the Hornets closest to him and began to load it while he asked Kai Leng, "So you think you can trust him with that gun, why?"

"Well sir, I believe that he is interested in keeping miss Whitmore safe is more important to him than anything else."

Surprised by what Kai Leng said I asked him, "What makes you so sure about that Kai Leng? What is it about me that makes you think you can trust me with it?"

"Honestly," he paused, looking at me before continuing, "I have a 'gut feeling' about it."

After Kai Leng said that Harper cleared his throat to get both Kai Leng's attention and mine before he said "Very well Kai Leng, Mr. Stone."

Harper tossed the now loaded Hornet to me in its collapsed form which I barely caught and held it in both hands after I had placed the Predator in my shirt's breast pocket, looking at it before nodding slightly to Jack Harper before I asked, "So which one of you wants to explain to me where the safety is?" which drew a low groan out of Kai Leng who quickly gave me a brief explanation on how to operate it.

I looked back to Harper as he was pulling the Phalanx off of my chair, and kept it at waist height with both hands after he had tossed a Mattock in its folded state to Kai Leng, before he looked at me, "According to our security network the intruders have landed multiple shuttles with no registry or identification code in the hangar three decks below us meaning they have at least ten to twelve fully armed squads heading up here and to the labs.", and as if to emphasize the point the locked door to the office we were in suddenly flashed green and opened revealing the squad of Cerberus soldiers that had been patiently waiting for Harper's orders.

The Centurion in the lead shouted, "Sir! We need to get you out of here now!", then looking at Kai Leng the Trooper closest to him was silently notifying Kai Leng, "According to Bravo and Delta squads they managed to secure the elevators on this floor, however by now the enemy are probably using the maintenance controls to override them in order to access this level."

"How many intruders are there?" I asked quickly, the Centurion suddenly turned to face Kai Leng who gave him a brief nod to coninue, "We are unable to determine how many there are onboard the station however we know for certain there are at least twenty of them heading up here right now and, wait one.", holding his left hand up to his helmet and touching part of it near where their left ear would be, "according to Bravo Squad the enemy has breached this floor at maintenance door fifteen and are proceeding along the corridor, it appears that they are attempting to push up the corridor to access the Vault on this level sir, and-" the Centurion held his hand up to his helmet once more, "the enemy is dividing up into two groups, one appears to be coming for you sir and the other is continuing through to the Vault, we should get you off of the station immediately."

The Centurion moved towards Jack Harper as if he was expecting him to get behind him while Jack Harper looked down the hallway. Instead he turned to the Centurion sharply before looking at me for a few seconds before saying, "No, you and your men are moving to meet them head-on at the security post just down the hall, Kai Leng take the utility tunnels and cut off their access to the hangars by any means necessary, Lieutenant have one of your men get demo-charges from the armory on this floor and use them to restrict access to this side of the station so they have to come to you, once they are dealt with head to Vault 37 and make sure the enemy can't get inside, Mr. Stone I want you to follow me through the labs to Vault 1.", not seeing that I had a choice in the matter because in order for me to help Sharon I needed to live through this first, and I needed help in order to even begin to think about helping Shepard let alone the galaxy to prepare for the arrival of the Reapers, with that simple conclusion I nodded slightly before following Jack Harper down the corridor and into what I knew was going to be the worst day of my life in this reality, or at least until the events of Mass Effect were supposed to occur anyway.

The hallway was still clear when we reached the security post; upon reaching it the five soldiers Harper had ordered to secure it moved inside the security station's office control room and activated several turrets that were located along the routes the enemy was currently taking which were successful in their task up to a point. It also gave us Jack Harper, Kai Leng, and I our first look at the enemy. Soldiers wearing black armor that almost immediately reminded me of the Alliance soldiers wore in Mass Effect 3 with what looked like modified helmets similar to a Death Mask helmet and Kahne Hadar chest plates, there were at least five of them moving in a line at the head of the group heading towards Harper's office equipped with Omni-shields, and what looked like a trio of N7 Slayers moving behind them along with a look-alike for a Cerberus combat engineer except they were carrying what looked like a carrying case of some kind on their back instead of a VI controlled turret. Looking at another screen I saw a group with almost the same kind of load-out except instead of "Guardians" in front they had regular soldiers, and instead of a trio of Slayers there were engineers and two of them were carrying what looked like laptops with heavy armor plating on the sides in their left hands, and then I saw them, a group of three at the back of the group heading to the "Vault" another Slayer look-alike without a helmet revealing a woman with black hair with side-bangs that went down to about an inch below their jawline while the rest of her hair slanted upwards slowly tapering off to an even cut where their neck and skull met, noting the sword she was wearing was based on the design of the ninjato similar to what Kai Leng was wearing except it was made from a dark grey material that looked almost black and there was a rifle of some kind occupying a space on her back that I couldn't identify off-hand. Then there was the pair of soldiers next to her, one was wearing armor which reminded me of the Adept off of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer and was holding a black colored Vindicator and then there was the soldier in-between the Slayer and the Adept look-alikes, they were wearing what resembled a cross between a Dragoon's armor, and was wearing what looked like an Aegis helmet, and what drew the most attention were the obvious modifications to the chest area in the form of additional armor plating, bulkier armor on the limbs, and the back of their armor had some kind of armored pack that had been extended up behind their neck and hooked onto the shoulders with armor plates covering the spaces between the neck and shoulders, thin faintly glowing blue lines stretching down from the pack across the chest, down the arms and the rest of the armor as well occasionally weaving beneath armor plating apparently added to cover the exposed joints, yet despite the added weight it did not appear to hinder them in any way, looking at their armor for some reason made me think _"A Mass Effect based system of some sort possibly?"_.

The only things all of the soldiers we had seen on the security consoles had in common were the black armor, all of the troops with assault rifles were equipped with what looked like Avenger assault rifles, the Guardians/Paladins were equipped with what looked like modified Locusts so they could be fired with one hand by using what looked like a stock that was about six inches long and actually had part of it curve up and was able to be connected to the armor plating on their forearms, and the engineers appeared to have Carnifex pistols. The last thing they all had in common was a lack of regard for prisoners and those who questioned orders; they had failed to take a single person captive when they surrendered.

We had were about to leave when one of the Cerberus soldiers turned the audio on for the console showing the group heading for the Vault on this floor when the group suddenly stopped on the screen when a pair of doors to the right of the enemy soldiers opened revealing a group of men and women in lab-coats who suddenly cried out when all of the soldiers turned in almost perfect unison with weapons raised to face the scientists who all had their hands raised above their heads expecting to be taken prisoner when the soldier in the Dragoon-like armor raised his hand but didn't say anything when one of the lead soldiers in a cold emotionless tone said, "Acknowledged, no prisoners.", I had already told the trooper who had turned on the audio to shut it off but it was too late, all eight of us standing in the security station heard the pwit-pwit-pwit of the discharge of Avengers and the screams that followed, I was horrified not because they did it in the first place, or the fact they killed them in cold-blood but because of the thought that crossed my mind when I saw it happen, _"What if they did this to Sharon? I promised I would be here with her, I promised I would help her get home, God no. NO!"_

I was turning to Harper and when I saw his face, he had obviously been thinking to himself as well, however his face was not one of horror, it was an image of pure rage, rage and bloody vengeance. I could have said something but then I heard it over the speakers in the security post, "Sir did we have to execute them? Intelligence suggests that almost all of the scientists here are…", looking back to the screen I saw the Slayer look-alike was speaking to the soldier that was in the modified Dragoon armor and the way that this person looked at her made my blood turn to ice, I couldn't see his face through the helmet but I could almost feel a silent menace to his gaze and I saw her visibly back up a step before she was slammed heavily into the wall behind her without him so much as moving his arm or the blue aura of active biotics, the only things we all had seen was his left hand twitch as if he was slapping something, a visible dent in the metal plating that made up the wall, the Slayer's unmoving form on the floor at the base of the opposite wall and what looked like several pieces from her sword were laying on the floor. Then we heard a hissing voice that was coming from the helmet the supposed Dragoon was wearing which was obviously human as it had been electronically distorted in the same manner as Cerberus troops had theirs, "Soldiers this is the way one who questions our orders die.", the figure had said and then they drew their pistol, a black colored pistol with what looked like a long barrel attached to it which I instantly recognized.

"They are Alliance or were Alliance because that is an M-11 Suppressor handgun." I said with horror slipping into my voice as I realized what was happening while I commented to Harper and Kai Leng which I could see from the corner of my eye, was looking at me in curiosity tinged with something like surprise before we heard the muffled twunt-twunt and we saw blood spray from a pair of holes that suddenly appeared in her chest where her sternum was and she slowly slid to her right and stopped on the floor laying on her shoulder.

"This has to be a black-op." looking over to my right I realized it was Harper who had made the comment.

I asked Harper, "The Systems Alliance?"

"Possibly Mr. Stone, however if it was, they wouldn't have stopped with just a few shuttles and black ops personnel…" before he could finish the rest of his sentence there was movement on the screen catching all of our attention, and the group was moving again towards their objective, and we saw the woman on the floor start to stir slightly as she reached to her suit's combat belt and pulled something from it and with the same hand made a brief motion with her fingers and then made a circular motion on her chest.

"Sir, I think she is using medi-gel on those chest wounds." one of the troopers in the security post commented.

I turned to Harper and said, "If we want to know who sent them our best source of information is right there bleeding out."

"Right, Mr. Stone you are with me, everyone else do as I ordered." Harper had said with an authority that carried like a hammer fell.

Just as I had started to leave the security room I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to see an arm covered with a long white sleeve and that told me exactly who it was, "What do you want," thinking for less than a second I added politely, "sir?"

"No need to do that yet Mr. Stone, I opened that storage locker because I know enough about you already to realize you don't have an Omni-tool," Harper then held out a pair of gloves with a disc integrated into the palms along with what appeared to be wiring extending from them to the end of each finger and thumb before he collected his Phalanx off of a nearby shelf above a set of lockers anchored to the wall with a series of empty weapon racks above them, "I am also assuming you don't know how to use it so I will tell you how to operate it on the way to that woman."

Llooking up from the gloves he had handed me I realized just what this meant, he was trusting me with an Omni-tool, a small handheld computer that could cripple this entire station if I had the know-how and the right programs. "Thank you." then pausing for a moment considering what I should do with the Omni-tool "Can you show me how to add offensive applications and give me a crash course on how to use this?" indicating the newest 'weapon' in my arsenal with a simple heft of the glove-like Omni-tool before I added, "Don't worry about explaining the civilian apps yet I can always ask someone about them later, because right now I am more worried about how to use this with relative effectiveness in combat here and now." then realizing I had one more _minor_ problem, "What should I be calling you when I am in the presence of other members of Cerberus anyway? The Illusive Man, T.I.M., Sir, your last name with Mr. in front of it?"

"We will discuss that, and to what extent your involvement with our organization will be _later_ , for right now however, we are going to go get a little intel." by the way he was acting and how he indicated the security console showing the somewhat motionless black-clad woman. I could take a guess as to what he had in mind.

I nodded my head slowly before quoting an old saying, "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Correct, Sir?" I said with my best attempt at humor for the situation.

Harper replied, "In this case," he then looked back to the console before continuing, "it is more on the lines of everything has a price, and her life is worth its weight in gold to us, or to be more accurate a little information about who sent her."

We were moving down the hallway away from the security post towards one of the labs on this level which according to Harper had an access to a maintenance corridor that would lead to another lab which once we entered it would give us access to a section the enemy had 'cleared' meaning we were walking into the aftermath of their assault. I was not looking forward to it at all for two reasons, first there would be a lot of dead people, and second I was afraid of whether or not Sharon was going to be among them and what I would do after I found her there. Banishing the thoughts from my mind I immediately tried to think of something to focus on other my own fears, and I found that when I thought of our short term goal, get to the wounded woman halfway across a massive station that could withstand a relatively large Alliance fleet bombarding the Hell out of it.

We thankfully reached the lab quickly enough that I did not have the time to think further on my fears, Harper was explaining what he was expecting to find inside, prototype armor, Omni-tools, some weapons undergoing modifications for research purposes, and so on. Why he decided to mention the full extent of what was being researched in this particular lab was beyond my understanding. Once we were in front of the door Harper activated his Omni-tool and started to manipulate it to unlock the door which had the orange colored lock indicating it needed to be bypassed in order for us to access the lab beyond it. As Harper was attempting to unlock the door he was giving me a crash course in operating an Omni-tool which allowed me to select a pair of combat applications I felt I needed, Overload and Incinerate along with probably the most useful in this case, an Omni-blade melee application, I felt it would be useful not because of my being a fan of the series or wanting to get up close and personal but because I knew that at some point I would be forced into a situation that would require a quiet takedown, or I might get into a situation where grabbing an opponent and slamming them down on my side of whatever cover they had been using would be useful for taking out an opponent like a soldier that hadn't been paying attention. Once he had the door open I could see inside and what I saw was something out of my own little science-fiction wish-list, Cerberus Shade armor, refits for part of an Atlas mech sitting in a large bay that took up almost a quarter of the lab which had what appeared to be a cargo lift on the opposite side of the room, and another shorter and far more sleek looking mech was sitting in the back of the room locked into a collection of arms and power conduits while painted in a literal patchwork of white and grey digital camouflage with the same orange material as an Atlas being used for the cockpit cover but instead of the rounded cockpit cover the Atlas had this mech had an almost triangular cockpit cover that latched into the edges of its 'torso' with a near transparent coating of the same camouflage over its familiar orange canopy, the mech was about a meter or so shorter than an Atlas at my best guess while maintaining a leg structure that was similar to its supposed predecessor which I could guess was difficult seeing as how the "waist" was partially hidden beneath where the pilot would be, standing at about two and a half meters high and all of its armor was slanted for armor thickness that would place it at around what you would expect from early World War II tanks ranging from 20mm (about 0.787 inches) at my best guess to around an inch and a half covering the joints, its arms actually had hands and not claws mounted above the guns on the lower arms and what looked like two clusters of box-like containers with sixteen hexagonal plates which extended from the shoulders and ending somewhere behind the cockpit between a pair of stubby wings, looking over to a console next to it I saw vital statistics such as mass, systems, armor thickness, fuel economy, and weapons just to name a few. Looking at the top of the console I saw the name Project Griffon, XTJ-02 Valkyrie class mechanized infantry support unit (or MISU), reading further I saw the list of weapons, 2 modified CM-33 anti-fighter mass accelerator auto-cannons, 2 Hell-Fury micro-missile pods (16 missile payload for each pod), and 2 EX-07 Disruptor Cannons.

"Disruptor cannons?" I said aloud while looking at the currently inactive mech standing in front of me and thinking _"I wonder if they are similar to the Phase Disruptor Cerberus Phantoms and N7 Slayers use?"_ , but before I could ponder further I was called over to one of the tables by Harper and on it was a suit of what looked like Cerberus Shade armor but it had an armor plated vest on the chest as well as a straight edged sword that resembled a katana sitting next to it on a small table with what looked like scanners moving over it in an attempt to find flaws according to the images and a statement below the collection of images was an order simply stating that it was to look for indications of stress fractures from a test performed earlier at 08:48 according to the time stamp next to it, and below the main image was a name and I found myself reading aloud out of interest, "Mono-molecular Service Blade - ninjato model 3-Var. 2A", _"A ninjato? I think I saw one of these in the antique collection Sharon's father owns."_ reading further I read overall weight 3kg, blade length 76.2 cm (30 inches), research notes: The edge of the blade is modified to carry electrical currents from a capacitor in handle and base of the blade via ultra-conductive materials interwoven into the blade's edge, which can also be used to divert electrical discharge from Overload and Neural Shock Omni-tool combat applications in place of battery usage, additional variants include an Eezo based compound introduced into the blade's edge during the forging process which once an electrical current or discharge is introduced to the blade the compound can reproduce the effects of a Biotic Warp attack on contact increasing anti-armor capability by roughly 80% in combat situatons. Supplemental note: The materials currently used in Mono-molecular Service Blade construction to date have proven brittle and in many cases have shattered easily under combat conditions including gunshots and contact from another sword. This model, (3-Var. 2A) uses a new alloy blend roughly equivalent to the titanium alloy blend used for Alliance armor plating onboard their newer ships, this variant however uses a high density ceramic blend of equal strength which is nearly half the original weight of the Titanium alloy used in the original Katana model 3's design."

I looked once more to Harper and I couldn't help but ask, "So what did you want to show me anyway?"

"Nothing, put it on." I was surprised beyond belief, yes I realized I didn't have any sort of protection from guns at the moment however the last thing I had expected was to be ordered by Harper to put on some apparently random armor, looking at the Shade armor laying on the table in a manner of surprise and confusion I then returned my attention back to Harper who was in the process of putting what appeared to be a flak vest of some kind over his white dress shirt. Before I knew it I heard him say, "If you have information as important as you say you do, put it on, now."

Shaking my head I replied, "Right sorry."

"Don't be, just get it on, I am going to make sure the next lab is clear, in the mean-time however see if you can find anything you can use in here."

I noticed he was looking squarely at the small arms, and other 'light' equipment which told me he was hoping for me to pick equipment that I didn't need training to use. Looking to him once more as he left I said in a very cheery voice, "Oh don't worry I think I can manage to scrounge something up.", the tone I had made him stop and look at me with a worried look on his face before he continued to the other end of the lab to start opening another set of doors which were made out of a thick glass with the same grey metal used in the frame as was the rest of the station, looking back to the Shade armor I took my time taking it apart, before I could actually put it on I had to remove my personal items such as my wallet and keys, thankfully finding places in the armor's combat belt to place them, when I withdrew the plain silver cross Sharon had given me for my twenty-fourth birthday from around my neck, I hesitantly put it in one of the pouches in back of my armor's combat belt slowly and held my hand on the outside of the compartment for a moment, I found myself wishing I knew what happened to her. After about five minutes I found myself thanking the designer of the Shade armor because it had been far too easy to put on, and the only thing left on the table aside from the helmet was the coat-like outer layer which once I slipped over the sleeves of the suit I felt a tingling sensation and my hair stood on end as I could feel it adhere itself in place with magnetic seals, and electrostatic discharges, grabbing the helmet and placing it over my head I could see the Heads-Up-Display (HUD) flicker to life as I heard the hiss as the suit became pressurized. Suddenly I was prompted by the helmet's HUD to perform a series of body movements which as I did them I could feel the suit begin to shift and seemingly accommodate itself to my body structure and build, then it prompted me to raise the hand I wanted to use for my Omni-tool, I honestly couldn't decide which one I wanted so I decided to raise my left hand, and suddenly there it was the same bright orange glow of an active Omni-tool. Looking through the loaded applications I was bombarded with a stunningly large list of loaded applications as well as a set-up request for the installation of a Mass Effect Field Generator which surprised me, looking at the table I hadn't seen anything then I looked around and saw a simple disc which matched the image provided by the Omni-tools prompt, inserting it into a slot indicated in the installation manual, the suit suddenly felt lighter and on a whim I jumped slightly and did a twist in mid-air which left me land lightly on a table behind me which made me laugh lightly because I had never been able to jump very high so I avoided playing basketball and now I could probably do a slam-dunk. Looking ahead I realized I was standing just in front of the sword I had seen earlier, spinning slightly to catch hold of the handle with my left hand I was surprised when the Omni-tool brought up another display on my HUD and I grinned when it brought up a list of combat apps in the upper left corner of my armor's HUD, and it displayed a list of what it called, 'Default Combat Apps.' I was unsure if that was what I wanted so I switched the sword over to my right hand and I focused on the list of Combat Apps., Phase Disruptor, Cloak, Overload, and surprisingly enough my right hand gave me another indicator on my HUD telling me that I had an Omni-blade app loaded which was currently disabled until I told it otherwise, a deep blue indicator bar flashed into existence across the bottom of my HUD and another indicator bar had made itself known on the left of my display, it simply stated 'Capacitor Charge' with a small icon resembling the sword I had picked up and a bar that was slowly filling itself and stopped at about halfway which told me someone had left the sword in a hurry while they were in the lab, probably once the fighting had started.

Picking up my Hornet SMG and Predator pistol from the table I placed the ninjato on the open magnetic slot on my left shoulder, I had placed the Predator in the area normally reserved for shotguns in such a way so that the handle was on my left side, and my Hornet SMG was being held in my right hand. Looking ahead to the door that Harper had opened while I was getting ready I noticed a crate off to my left that was a very familiar red and white, grinning I walked over and pressed a button that was visible on the side allowing me to open the lid after a brief struggle revealing cylindrical objects that made me grin even wider, frag grenades, grabbing two which I placed on my armor's combat belt on the left side. I then proceeded through the open door and saw a lab that was filled with what looked like something out of a gun enthusiast's dreams, walls filled with weapons from all over the galaxy as far as I could tell, N7 weapons, Cerberus made Talons, Eviscerators, Mattock rifles, Harriers, Hornets, Dragoons, and many other weapons I didn't recognize were on shelves, mounted on walls, laying disassembled on tables, along the far wall was a firing range extending from the far right wall to about halfway across the room ending in a large one foot thick wall of glass, with very visible armor plating lining the end of the firing range with the targets.

Looking around the room I saw Harper opening another door with his Omni-tool and I saw the sign mounted on the wall next to it, it read, "Xenoarcheology Vault 1 Division Alpha", overcome with curiosity I walked over to Harper slowly and asked, "What's in there, Prothean artifacts or something?"

Harper just kept staring at his Omni-tool for a few seconds before he answered, "Actually yes there are a few inside, this is one of the xenoarcheology divisions on this station that are currently studying the contents of the Vaults on this station." he looked like he was going to say something else before the door's lock indicator flashed from a deep orange color with red outlines to a completely green icon which rotated in a counter-clockwise fashion before it disappeared opening up to a large dark room, before I could ask what was inside the lights slowly began to flicker to life revealing something which I could hardly believe was onboard Chronos Station.

Prothean artifacts ranging from Particle rifles in various states of disrepair or disassembly laying on tables or on shelves to an obviously defunct Prothean Beacon, armor from long dead civilizations which I didn't recognize, and finally what had caught my attention, a single dark grey metal pillar with faintly glowing yellow lines spreading out from the base all the way to the top of it, the pillar in question was maybe a half-meter wide and was almost two meters tall and was very angular as if it was made to resemble a crystal that was rhomboid in shape (diamond shaped similar) if you looked down from the top of it towards its base. All of these awaited us and when the lights in the lab slowly flickered to life in the formerly dark room they greeted us in the splendor of lost knowledge that could have remained undiscovered without the diligent work of whomever Harper had hired, or paid to bring them here by any means necessary. Looking at the pillar in the center of the room, I asked Harper a question that was bothering me ever since I had heard him say The Vault or Vaults, "How many of these Vaults are there?"

"Currently there are a total of 37 including Vault 1 which is located on this level and is split between this floor and the floor beneath us."

When I heard this I felt my eyes widen in surprise before I asked yet another question but this one seemingly appeared from nowhere, "What is that pillar anyway?", Harper looked at the dark grey pillar, after which its faintly glowing yellow lines began to glow a little brighter at the attention, and he hesitantly took a step towards it but quickly took a step back to put distance back between him and it, which caused me to look at him with a note of concern when he suddenly held his left hand up to his forehead and was holding it as if he had an extremely bad headache. I watched him move his lips as if he was saying something before I heard him utter, **"Assuming direct control."** , and in response I held up my Hornet and aimed it in his direction but not at him, and kept a non-threatening posture as he slowly straightened himself to a completely straight posture and looked at the pillar before he said, **"Human, you will destroy that object."** , I was absolutely confused and I didn't move from my spot because of it. Suddenly I had Harper's Phalanx pointed at my head and I heard Harper/Harbringer command me yet again, **"Destroy that object now Human, or I shall destroy you."** , I was tempted to tell him to crawl deep into Dark Space and die but something told me not to, looking at him I realized something, he couldn't destroy whatever that pillar was and he expected me to be able to. I couldn't help myself and I started to chuckle, which earned a response from Harbringer, **"What do you find so amusing Human? Do you not fear death?"**

I had to stop myself from replying now though, "You know Harbringer for an ancient, and rusty, old bucket of bolts and rotting flesh you sure have problems fighting your own battles." I had said while I was trying to catch my breath because my chuckling had devolved into full-blown laughter at its expense. The look I was getting from Harbringer looked as if I should be dead twice over but hey I could live with it because apparently he needed me to destroy whatever that artifact was, looking at Harper/Harbringer once more I noticed that the Phalanx in his hand was shaking slightly and I thought to myself, _"So Harper is still in there and fighting, good to know I am not alone in this fight then."_ , regaining my composure from my laughing fit I finally addressed Harbringer once more. "Harbringer, you realize you should just shoot me, but you don't know how to shut that down by yourself do you? That tells me all kinds of things about that little artifact over there, one of those little facts is that you are actually _afraid_ of it."

 **"Fear is irrelevant, it is a survival mechanism found in organics due to evolutionary processes, you will destroy it."**

"No. I won't, in fact I think I am going to test a theory with that little piece of galactic history.", Harbringer was visibly trying to maintain their aim with the Phalanx pistol however while Harper was fighting what I could only assume was a losing battle as the gun was slowly regaining stability, thinking quickly I placed my Hornet on my right thigh and made myself appear to be folding my hands behind my back while I was using my helmet's HUD to modify my Omni-tool via voice command to activate silently and prepared an Overload while I was making myself appear to be straightening myself as if I was preparing myself to meet my fate, Harbringer kept his pawn's face straight, and took careful aim with the Phalanx but I saw what I was hoping for Harper put it all on the line for one last push and pulled his finger away from the trigger giving me the opening I was hoping for. Less than a second after Harper took that small victory away from Harbringer I threw my left arm in front of me hand open and released the built up charge from the Omni-tool and thankfully hit the Phalanx, which I was hoping to do, which caused Harper's hand to convulse and the Phalanx suddenly emitted sparks and began to vent, which was pure luck on my part and I ran forward with my right arm extended. Hooking Harbinger/Harper underneath their arms, I pushed him towards the artifact and the palely glowing yellow lines that were barely giving off light before suddenly lit up as if they were holding back a miniature sun in its depths and the closer Harbringer/Harper got to it the more frenzied they became trying to get away from my insane tackle, when the two of us had gotten within five meters of the pillar Harper's body suddenly went rigid and looking up I saw his cybernetic eyes flicker briefly. Then I heard Harper's bloodcurdling scream, stopping short of the pillar I watched as his hands went to his eyes and suddenly he collapsed, setting him down carefully I heard a voice in _my_ head.

" _Such an abomination must not be allowed to exist."_

I had my brief moments of insanity before like most people but this was far different than the occasional wish to go sky-diving or try eating some raw ghost peppers, seeds and all. The voice was feminine, and immediately gave me the mental image of this one woman I had met in a pub I frequented while I was waiting for Sharon and her friends who wanted to grab some of the fish and chips the pub was famous for before we spent the night out in York for Sharon's twenty-second birthday, the voice was as I said feminine, soothing, had a lilting tone to it, and yet briefly reminded me of EDI's voice even though this one was more of a Soprano.

"Who the Hell are you, get out of my head...", was all I managed to utter before I heard something drop in front of me from the direction of the pillar, it was a small piece of dark grey metal about the size of my palm that had an almost gold colored crystalline material visible from where it extended from beneath its surface and then I heard the voice again but it was much clearer and hand a commanding tone to it.

" _Who I am is none of your concern for now, I have severed the connection the 'Abomination' had created, pick up the Key Young One"_

I couldn't control my own actions as I picked up the 'Key' as the voice had told me to, but before I could regain control of myself I heard the voice again, _"Young One, gather the poor soul and continue on your way, the Key is your salvation from destruction, for I have watched countless other races fall before the Dark Tide from the shadows I inhabit. I assisted the previous civilizations before your's with the Device, what you know as the Crucible I know as your Salvation, use the Key, finish the weapon, fulfill what you believe to be Fate."_ ,

I gave up on trying to physically talk to the voice verbally because it seemed to ignore me so I tried something a little different and thought of my reply solely in my mind. _"What have you done to Harper?"_

 _"Ah, you have learned already that I do not care for such simple and clumsy means of communication. I have severed the line of communication between him and what you know as the abomination called Harbringer."_

 _"Yes but what did you do to him?"_

 _"I have fixed him."_

 _"That does not answer my question."_

 _"You young beings are never satisfied with the simple answers, just be satisfied with the knowledge that his cybernetics were unharmed as was he, for he is only temporarily unaware."_

 _"Unaware, do you mean that he is just unconscious?"_

 _":sigh: Yes he is only unconscious, your lines of inquiry bore me, I must terminate this communication for time grows short, we shall speak later at a time of my choosing, keep the Key with you or in a truly safe place, do not allow anyone or anything other than this Commander Shepard, yourself, or myself near the Key, Young One."_

 _"My name is Ian Stone not Young One what is yours'?"_

 _"Again you ask for a title that I do not have, you may call me Oracle if you must have a title to call me by."_ , with the end of the last statement this "Oracle" gave me a name to call it by, and the conversation told me many things about "her" if indeed it was female, I had the impression that she was more of an it with a female persona. I realized I was on the floor with my eyes closed, looking around I saw Harper on the floor who was slowly getting up looking at his Omni-tool and asked what happened and about a second later why he felt like he was hit by a charging Krogan.

I helped Harper get up and quickly explained what happened while I was attempting to drag him towards the locked door on the opposite side of the xenoarcheology lab. I had already placed the "Key" in the pouch with the silver cross Sharon had given me and thought to myself _, "Hang in there Sherry, just please hold on a little longer."_ , realizing I hadn't asked Harper how he was doing I quickly did so as politely as possible and he just gave a curt response of, "I'm fine let's just get to that woman now!"

"No need to get snippy, after all I have almost no combat experience."

"What do you mean by that Mr. Stone?", he had asked with a hint of curiosity while he finished unlocking the door.

I stood there for a moment before I replied, "I mean, I have not fought anyone with the intention to kill, Harper."

Harper stood there for a moment before he simply raised his Phalanx before looking at it and tossed it before asking for my Predator pistol which I quickly handed over and set up my armor's Phase Disruptor for quick use and reviewed the firing procedure which was surprisingly just as simple as holding my arm straight with my hand splayed open, hold my palm so that the emitter was pointed where I wanted it and flex my fingers outwards slightly in order to fire. Looking ahead towards an intersection I recognized from the security feed we had watched earlier, and I saw a trail of blood that started as if someone had been dragged and then it slowly turned into a trail of blood-drops down the hall as if… realizing what I was looking at I quietly said, "Hey,", while tapping Harper on the shoulder to get his attention before pointing silently to the blood trail before I quietly said, "since I am the only one with full armor I will follow that, you stay back and wait for a bit before following me.", silently Harper nodded and raised my Predator up to chest height while I walked slowly trying to keep my weight spread evenly across my feet so the soles of the boots my armor had would muffle my footsteps because of the soft rubberized coating I had noticed they had.

I had followed the trail of blood drops from the wall where the Slayer look-alike had been laying at the base of the wall down the hallway towards a room with an insignia I recognized almost immediately, a red cross. Holding my Omni-tool up to the door, I couldn't help but think that she had apparently made her way to the med-bay, without dying surprised me considering she was shot at a range close enough to have bypassed her armor's kinetic barrier judging from the lack of the telltale 'sparks' that would have appeared from a direct hit on her armor's kinetic barrier and that we had better hurry. Forgetting the need for stealth at this point I gave a light jog towards the door to the med-bay which still had a green light indicating it was unlocked, and slowed to a walking pace and stopped at the edge of the doorway and moved over to the other side so I could use my left hand to open the door while holding the Hornet up by my chest in order to cover my entrance through the door in the event that some of this woman's 'friends' had decided to come back and make sure she was dead, or in the event she wanted to kill anyone who found her out of principle.

Opening the door was easy, looking into the room was easy, but convincing the black-haired and armored woman holding a black M-55 Argus about an inch from my face to lower it was obviously not going to be. I could only just stand there with my Hornet raised at chest level with both of my hands now holding onto it for added stability and I was looking down the barrel of her rifle with neither of us saying or doing anything. The silence continued for a moment before Harper showed up and he slowed down when he saw the Argus pointed at my head, he was taking a position near the doorway to try getting the drop on the person holding the gun when I took my right hand away from the trigger of my Hornet and held it up while slowly moving the Hornet down to my right thigh with my left hand and the Argus mercifully pulled back from my face. I then realized it wasn't because the pale beauty holding the rifle was feeling charitable but because she was starting to fall backwards which I then ran forward and caught her and in the process I discovered she was bleeding from a hole in her back just to the left of her spine. Signaling Harper over to me I told him about her gunshot wound and he almost immediately told me it was going to take a miracle to save her at this point, and I replied with a statement which told him that if any more lives were saved because she lived long enough to tell us who sent her and where they came from that would be a miracle in of itself.

It took Harper a few minutes to stop the bleeding using the equipment in the med-bay but our new intelligence asset had said when she had briefly regained consciousness. She wanted what amounted to asylum from the organization that attacked us. We then found out she was in fact an N7 Slayer that was reassigned from naval operations and assignments to an Alliance funded watchdog group loosely affiliated with several anti-piracy organizations, which brought her to the attention of a supposed Black Ops group that was referred to as Hecate, in reference to a Greek goddess usually associated with magic, amongst other things. She also told us the approximate location of one of the Hecate operated frigates that had brought them here. After which Harper quickly accessed the communications network to send a message via QEC to Minuteman Station ordering a taskforce to intercept and capture the frigate, and another one to bring additional reinforcements to assist in retaking Chronos Station, and I wasn't surprised when Olegg Petrovsky had answered that call and notified Harper that they would be here in about an hour because Minuteman Station itself was apparently attacked and that the Cerberus forces there successfully repelled the forces sent to attack it.

Elaina had requested a sedative while she "rested for a short time" as she had called it Looking at the now unconscious form of the black-haired woman who called herself Elaina Duran I asked Harper, "What are you going to do with her anyway?"

"I am unsure, for now, Mr. Stone," turning to look at him I was surprised to see him looking at me in an apologetic way before he continued, "also I apologize for…"

I was shocked, _"Jack Harper, apologizing? Did Hell freeze over or what? I think I better stop him before he ruins the image of The Illusive Man, a cold-hearted bastard."_ , quickly raising my left hand to cut him off I said, "No need, now you know exactly what is coming for us and that is by far more important to _everyone's_ survival. Right now however," withdrawing "The Key" from my armor's combat belt and began to flip it around between my hands I continued, "I just want to know who this 'Oracle' is and what this", I held up 'The Key' in my left hand as I spoke, "actually does, because she and this," indicating the "Key" once more before continuing, "are connected, obviously. I also am inclined to believe she may be older than the Reapers because she said she was supposed to 'archive' this galaxy and that she had been watching 'the Dark Tide' as if she had been watching it from the beginning, whatever that means is up for debate however."

"That is something I want to find out as well Mr. Stone," he looked like he was going to continue before he started looking at the door while bringing his Predator handgun up to chest height while raising his left hand in a halting gesture before continuing, "I think we are about to have company, get to cover now!"

His order came just in time as the door to the med-bay opened revealing a pair of Hecate Troopers who fired their Avengers at where we were standing and missed us by a few inches while we dived behind a nearby desk. Drawing my Hornet I quickly assessed our options as I was sure Harper was as well, I readied my Omni-tool for a chance to use an Overload but I suddenly had a thought, the med-bay had only a pair of small tables aside from the desks Harper and I were taking cover behind and then I had an insane idea after I saw the lights above us, it was just simple strip lighting. Grinning beneath my helmet I tapped Harper's shoulder, catching his attention I said one word, "Lights."

Harper gave me a confused look before widening his eyes in understanding then he gave a quick nod before using his Omni-tool to remotely access the electrical grid that the med-bay we were in was connected to, once he was finished he said, "Ready."

"Okay," I said quietly before counting aloud, but keeping it low enough for just Harper and myself to hear my counting, "Three, Two, One, Now!", and as soon as I said "Now" I placed my Hornet on my right thigh and drew my sword with my left hand, and vocally activated my armor's cloak at the same moment the lights went out in the entire med-bay leaving the two Troopers standing in the outline of the well-lit doorway quickly realizing the danger the darkness posed they backpedaled into the hallway and took up positions on either side of the door. They never heard me coming as I ran towards them and once they saw the shimmer of my cloak re-adjusting to the rapidly changing light levels it was too late for them to stop me from beheading the Trooper on my left with a hard slash from across my chest, following through with the strike I made with my ninjato I spun around to face the last Trooper with my sword continuing through the doorframe's edge and out the edge of the door of the med-bay itself. The sight of a sword doing that must have caused the other Trooper to panic because he tried to run and I didn't give him the chance as I brought up my Hornet and fired repeatedly watching the triple round bursts impact their kinetic barrier before it failed completely and holes leaking red suddenly blossomed from their back up to the top of their helmet before they fell forward onto the floor. As I stood there in the hallway looking for more enemy soldiers I was hit with the realization that I had just killed two people, looking into the med-bay as the lights came back on.

Harper must have noticed the way I was acting because he asked solemnly, "Are you alright Mr. Stone?"

"No, Harper, I am not alright!", I snapped at him.

However before I knew it I heard the rapid stomping of boots and a cold distorted order or statement, "Contact ahead! Get to cover and engage.", looking behind me and what I saw made me snap out of my shocked state.

There were eight that Hecate Troopers had taken up positions behind the corners of the intersection almost five meters away from the med-bay's door and behind a small security desk in the hall near the far wall. There was a soldier that had taken up a position behind the waist high desk, wearing what looked like a modified version of the armor Elaina was wearing but the helmet was an almost exact replica of what Cerberus Nemesis snipers wore right down to the enlarged lens on the right side of their helmet and then I saw the rifle they were aiming at me, an N7 Valiant, before I knew what happened I felt hands grab me from my left side and pull me into the now re-lit med-bay just in time to see a flurry of mass effect propelled metal shards slice through the area I had been standing.

I had turned expecting to see Harper holding my shoulder but instead I saw Elaina who should have been out cold on one of the operating tables from the sedatives she had requested. "How…? I saw him give you enough sedatives to put a Krogan down." As I was indicating with a nod in his direction Harper who was currently tossing a table onto its side at an angle to provide better cover just about an inch past the edge of the door before he took cover in the doorway and shot out an exposed hydraulic system which according to a brief explanation from him, doing what he did had disabled the mechanisms responsible for closing the door. I then decided to look down to where the wounds on her chest were and I was shocked to find two patches of what looked like scar tissue just above the center of her sternum, looking back up to her face, which now had a faint smile etched on it which I was sure was there because of the shocked expression on my face. "How the Hell are those wounds healed?"

"Medi-gel does wonders." was all that she said in reply.

All I could think was that that was a blatant lie, "Bullshit, Medi-gel is only a bandage and anti-microbial, after this is over you, him," I indicated Harper who according to the scream of pain and someone yelling for a medic, just either injured or killed someone with the pistol I had loaned him, I suddenly thought, _"Oh I better make sure to thank Kai Leng for that gun."_ , I then continued what I was saying before I completely lost my line of thought, "and I are going to have a very LONG chat about what these people are after and EXACTLY how you are up and walking, and no lies involved. Is that _understood_ Elaina?"

The raised eyebrows and slightly sagged shoulders told me the point was made, and the murmured reply of "Yes, sir…" was far less enthusiastic than I was hoping for but I could live with it.

"Good, now, grab your rifle so we can finish what your associates started." when she turned to grab her Argus rifle I quickly added, "Also Elaina, don't blame yourself for what they did."

She turned with a hand visibly tightening on the under-barrel of her Argus rifle and she had a far off look in her eyes for a moment before she snapped back to reality and said, "I could have done something else to stop them from killing those people."

I put my hand on her her shoulder as I started to turn towards the hallway while replying, "Yes, you could have, and you could also have joined those scientists instead of giving us a fighting chance against this Hecate Organization, not to mention you wouldn't have had the chance to live to redeem yourself not only in our eyes but your own.", walking to the hallway I looked briefly into the hallway towards the intersection which was now filled with a line of five Hecate Guardians and the Troopers that were originally there were down to six instead of the eight there had been.

"Alright, let me try something first before we start slaughtering them alright?", I had directed the request towards both Elaina and Harper who were both looking at me uneasily. Increasing the volume on my armor's speakers I said as clearly as I could, "Alright listen up, you are either going to be dead or dying in the next few minutes so do yourselves a favor and surrender."

"Oh, how amusing, a Cerberus _DOG_ wants us to surrender. I tell you what you step out from that room now after killing that insubordinate soldier in there with you and we will kill you quickly.", I listened to that statement and couldn't help but think, _"Cerberus dog, huh? Well I guess I have to remind them that Cerberus was a WOLF not a dog."_

Taking a moment to take a breath to calm myself I answered, "Cerberus is a wolf not a dog so you might want to reconsider your options because I am not the kind of person to leave survivors as you can see from your cohorts lying in pieces here by the door." after I had said that I heard something like a gurgle of rage or something from one of the Hecate Troopers, turning to Harper I asked him, "By any chance do we have any reinforcements on this floor?"

"At the moment? Just Kai Leng, he messaged me while you were having a chat with her," he indicated Elaina who was now giving him a look that could put a Krogan down faster than Ryncol could probably kill a human at the tone he had used, "that not only are the vaults below us secure, but that the enemy's shuttles below this deck are now disabled and that we have three squads moving to head off the group that was heading to Vault 1."

"What is in Vault 1 anyway?", I asked Harper in a serious tone while giving him a look that told him I was not in the mood for the run-around.

"Honestly Mr. Stone, an artifact similar to the monolith back there other than that it is unimportant at the moment.", he had indicated the door to the xenoarcheology lab with a quick jerking motion with his head.

looking back to Harper I asked, "Just HOW similar?"

"I will put it this way Mr. Stone, that monolith was the first evidence of a civilization older than the Protheans that was still intact and actively producing its own power, there was a second monolith of similar construction which was almost twice as large but its weight was almost half of the original and all scans indicated that it was a single solid mass."

"Okay so long story short, you have a giant alien paperweight that is really big, but these people," indicating the group of black armored soldiers down the hall, "are interested in it anyway?"

"Not quite bec-..."

I really wasn't in the mood for this crap so I interrupted him with a grunt and I said, "Not important he says, I tell him that there is a massive threat to our _VERY EXISTENCE_ and he pretty much calls me insane before all of these alarms go off and he tosses me a gun anyway? Bloody typical." readying my Hornet I walk to the dead trooper about half a meter from the med-bay's entrance. Letting my mind wander I glanced to the dead Hecate Trooper's feet, and picking up one of them I dragged them into the med-bay's interior without exposing myself to the soldiers down the hall and then dragged the other one which was just lying in the doorway itself back into the med-bay, I began to look through their combat belts finding ammo blocks, Medi-gel (according to the package it was Medi-gel anyway and surprisingly enough the label was in English however, beneath the main label it said Nex Gen Incorporated), _"NexGen Incorporated? I might need to look into them later and see if I can get this Medi-gel can be traced to this Hecate Organization's main base or something."_ and finally a one pair of fragmentation grenades on each of their belts, which Harper wanted one of them almost immediately which I obliged wholeheartedly as well as giving the soldiers one of them myself after watching Harper prime one and throw it by pushing down on the cylinder's top and twisting before pressing the button on the side to arm it and about two seconds after it skidded underneath the line of Omni-shield wielding Hecate Guardians the grenade I threw detonated turned after hitting the edge of a soldier's boot and rolled behind the desk before detonating turning the three soldiers behind the security desk into scattered remains, and two of the Guardians fell forward onto the floor lying completely still with massive holes with scorch marks in their backs with one of them impaled by part of what looked like an Avenger's stock. The grenade Harper threw, however it had happened, had bounced off of the ceiling before falling onto the head of the Hecate Sniper that had just popped up to try and shoot at us before detonating in their hand after catching it on reflex what was left of them and the soldiers next to them was little more than a group of scattered and charred remains while what was left of the Sniper was little more than a boot that was poking out from behind the thick metal shelving they had been using for cover.

"I see they at least know how to catch grenades properly.", I had commented to myself while glancing down the hallway noting the now reduced number of soldiers I tapped Harper's shoulder to get his attention again, "How far to Vault 1 anyway?"

Harper took a moment before answering, "We take a right down this hall continue down it for… three intersections, then we take a left at the fourth intersection, then the second large set of doors on the left, why?"

"Just wondering how much longer we have to run around up here. Well I'm tired of waiting for them to make a move; I am betting they are just here to buy them time to get to the Vault and to access the computer network to use a data-mine anyway." I said directly to Harper who was apparently very creative when it came to swearing when it became appropriate. "By the way Elaina," I was now looking at Elaina before I continued, "how good are you at using that Argus of yours?"

Elaina instead of immediately answering looked at me for a few seconds with that far-away look in her eyes before a slight smile formed on her face before she replied, "Now what would make you ask such a stupid question?", before she pulled her Argus off of her back letting it unfold and leaned to her right slightly in a manner that told me that she was a little too eager to use it.

"I am asking because there are only five soldiers left out there and we need to hurry through that intersection, that and I would rather not give Hecate any more of an advantage over this organization, so by all means shoot away." I said with a resigned manner which caused her to smile and saunter over to the doorway before leaning to fire.

The only sounds in the hallway were the Pwit-it-it of two Hecate Troopers' Avengers, and the Do-ew-ew-ew of Locust SMG's being fired in bursts by the Hecate Guardians answered by the Punt-Punt-Punt of a lone Predator handgun, the Crack-ack-ack of a single Argus rifle, and then there was the rapid triple burst Hirp-irp-irp of my Hornet submachinegun. Each burst from the Argus resulted in the sudden sounds of death coming from the last two Hecate Troopers, and the sounds of impacts on kinetic barriers when the rounds were directed at the Hecate Guardians, and then there were the results of the rounds Harper and I had fired at them. Each round Harper and I had fired had either bounced harmlessly off of the Omni-shields the Guardians were using or in the case of Harper's Predator had been fired at them to little effect before he picked up a fallen Avenger rifle from one of the Troopers I had moved into the med-bay, which he fired in burst before he realized the rounds were passing through the Omni-shield of his chosen target after a brief moment of concentrated fire causing the Omni-shield wielding Guardian, which prompted him to fire in much longer bursts than just a few rounds causing one of the last three Guardians to fall forward with a stomach turning splat as blood was slowly pooling around them, this in turn made the last remaining pair of Guardians begin to fall back with a very slow backpedal before I threw one of my two remaining grenades after being fed up with how little my Hornet was doing against the remaining enemies, which slid behind the farthest Guardian and detonated just behind them causing them to fall forward missing part of their lower right leg and most of their armor had faintly glowing shrapnel from the grenade, however the explosion was close enough for it to catch the Omni-shield of the other Guardian causing it to fail completely as he scrambled behind cover, which caused them to stumble backwards out from behind his cover due to the concussive force that hadn't been stopped by the Omni-shield which in turn caused all three of us to immediately aim for them and almost as one we fired leaving little more than yet another leaking corpse. I walked out from the med-bay with my Hornet raised and began to walk down the hall towards the security desk in the intersection just as Harper and Elaina had started to leave cover as well a faint flicker had caught my eye causing me to step backwards on instinct, narrowly avoiding something that had made a heavy Clanking sound when it hit the floor and left a visible cut mark in the metal plating.

I then watched the faint flicker reappear and a black-clad woman in what appeared to be a modified version of the N7 Shadow armor was slowly revealed as her cloak failed from the act of using her sword, in response I kicked her in the stomach sending her stumbling back causing her sword to come loose from its former resting place in the metal flooring, while buying myself the time to holster my Hornet once more and allowed me the time to draw the sword from my back and take a low guard position as Sharon had called it when she had taught me to fence. I knew it was a stupid thing to do using fencing techniques with a ninjato, I also knew that this ninjato was made from ultra-light materials and had a mono-molecular edge to it making it better suited for combat styles and maneuvers designed for lighter swords such as a sabre. I still knew that it was a mistake because of how the ninjato was designed, although the funny thing about the ninjato, however was even though it was designed for slashing and cutting it was still capable for stabbing if you were careful and the way this Shadow imitation was standing with her longsword after recovering from my kick, her sword didn't have a hilt per-say for some reason, her stance told me she was not the kind of person to just rush in blindly. Slowly she started to move to my right keeping myself between Harper and Elaina because they were armed for ranged combat at the moment.

I followed her with my eyes not moving a muscle just waiting for her next move, and she did something I didn't expect, she took a small step back and I suddenly heard her ask. "You are going to attack sometime soon I hope, I have an entire station full of people I have to get past."

I replied, "You mean you actually give them a fighting chance and not just murder them like your associates?" I had pointed with my right hand over to the left side of the hallway where the open lab door revealed the corpses of the scientists I had seen on the security console near Harper's office.

My comment failed to elicit a response from her other than something that sounded vaguely like, "I am not a murderer."

I just couldn't keep myself in check anymore and said only one last comment, "I think you are because you wouldn't be standing here if you actually meant that, _MURDERER_.", which prompted her to raise her sword and close in faster than I was expecting while letting out a feral, and incomprehensible howl.

Flicking her sword in a shallow arc she brought it swinging in from my left in a swing that would have taken my head off just above my shoulders, except I brought my sword up to catch it and I stepped under it while pushing upward and out to her left, away from her, which also opened her up for a strike of my own which unfortunately would not be stopped easily, or so I thought. I slashed my sword in a strike that would have cut her across her abdomen except she reacted by kicking me in the head, thanking whoever designed my armor's helmet because the helmet cushioned the blow enough so I only had a slight headache. Instead of movingto my left I allowed the force of the kick to push me back and I quickly turned my stumble backward into a quick retreat placing almost two meters between myself and my opponent who now had her left hand raised and I recognized the glow of a Phase Disruptor, when I realized what she had I in response raised my left hand activating my armor's Phase Disruptor as well noting the draw from a new indicator that appeared below the barrier strength indicator on my helmet's HUD, I smiled in response realizing I had a major advantage over my opponent compared to her own Phase Disruptor which would draw from her kinetic barrier, while mine apparently drew from a separate battery system at least temporarily. We stood like that for about a second before she did a flip placing herself further to my right and fired her Phase Disruptor mid-air which hit my right shoulder causing me to be violently spun slightly to my right which, unfortunately for her, allowed me to use the momentum to aim my Phase Disruptor at her, and I fired hitting her squarely in her chest causing her to stumble backwards and I charged forward with my ninjato performing a slash from my left shoulder to my right aiming for a slash across her shoulders. She had just recovered from the impact of the Phase Disruptor and brought her head up to look at me before she realized what I was doing and in response she had brought her sword up to block my slash, which was successful, but it did what I was hoping for, I brought up my left hand and fired my Phase Disruptor again outside of the protective bubble of her kinetic barrier, causing her barrier to fail and caused her to stumble back again but she bounced roughly off of the wall, I didn't charge in with my sword again however, I just aimed my Phase Disruptor again and fired punching a neat hole about an inch below where her heart should be. She stood there for a moment before she realized what had happened and began to fall to her right and tried to catch herself on the edge of the security desk but only succeeded in missing it by a few inches causing her to fall to the floor roughly.

She was lying on the floor trying to slow the blood loss from the hole in her chest with her hands which was working to an extent. I was standing there above her wondering what I should do when she tried reaching for her helmet with her right hand but was having difficulty with it so I moved her sword off down the hall and I moved my sword out to my right while it was still clutched in my hand with the tip resting gently on the metal flooring out of her reach and knelt down and with my left hand helped her remove it, under that helmet was the face of a woman who looked like she had been through Hell itself because of a haunted look in her brown eyes, her short brown hair was kept at maybe two inches long and she was breathing raggedly, and she had already coughed rather heavily causing blood to run from the hole in her chest a little faster, I realized I should do something to help but I couldn't bring myself to do anything so I placed my ninjato on the floor where she couldn't reach it and with my right hand picked her head up and raised her up and I asked her calmly, "So what did you mean when you said you weren't a murderer?"

'cough, cough' I meant, "I, didn't kill anyone who, had, been unarmed.", I was at least comforted that she hadn't done anything like what the Hecate Troopers had done to the scientists, supposedly.

"You know, I think I want to know your name."

"Why do, you 'wheeze', care?"

I reached for her right hand which was lying at her side and held it in mine trying to provide some comfort to her "I care because before today I have never killed anyone and now that this has happened I have killed seven people with an eighth, a young woman with brown hair and a pair of beautiful hazel eyes, lying here in my arms and myself wishing things hadn't turned out this way.", then realizing she couldn't see my face I let go of her hand and reached up to my helmet and removed it with a faint hissing sound, placing it on the floor to next to my sword I looked at her with saddened eyes, I saw her eyes widen in surprise when my hair had fallen from behind my neck where I had put it temporarily to keep it out of my way when I had put my armor on.

I then heard her ask, "Why is 'cough' your hair so long?"

"I grew it out as a favor for a friend of mine, maybe you have seen her, twenty-two years old, maybe 120 pounds, six feet tall, athletic, fairly quiet, fair complexion, green eyes, long brown hair, and answers to the name of Sharon or Sherry."

"I think I know who you are talking 'cough, cough' about 'cough, cough' she was taken back to one our ships before I arrived according to 'cough' our orders."

"I think I will ask you what your orders were later. Hey what's your name anyway?"

"Cora, my name is 'cough' Cora."

"Do you think you can hold on until we can get you some help?"

"I can try but why do 'cough, cough, cough' you want to help me? I am part of the organization that 'cough' killed those 'cough' people."

I saw her looking at the door to the lab where the dead scientists were, "Did you kill any of them Cora?"

"No. I hadn't 'cough' boarded this 'cough' station yet."

I could see the pained look in her eyes when she had said it as if she held herself responsible, "Then I see no reason why I should care about your past loyalties."

"But why?"

"I also want some information about where my friend is as well, so it makes sense for me to want you to live."

"That's 'cough' a bit shallow."

"No, it isn't shallow, it's just that I promised her just before your associates attacked that I would protect her and get her home safely."

"Get her 'cough, cough' home safely?", this Cora now had a very tired look on her face and I just saw Harper start to walk towards myself and Cora with the large boxy form of a medical kit from the med-bay but I could see the hesitation in his steps when Elaina took it from him carefully and did a slight jog which brought her to us faster than Harper was going to.

I was glad Elaina was willing to help but I could see some of that hesitation in her actions as well but it was more subdued. "Yes, we are both a very long way from home and I want both of us to get there alive and well.", I looked at Elaina briefly before I said, "Cora I am going to leave you here with this nice lady alright?", to which she just nodded slowly in a manner that reminded me of how Sharon acted when she was very tired, "Cora?"

"Hmm, what?"

"Stay awake please Cora, I know you must be tired but trust me it is worth the effort you put into staying awake.", she simply chuckled with a few bouts of light coughing while Elaina was attempting to treat her injuries.

Elaina had just finished applying medi-gel to slow the bleeding before she said, "I need to get her to a professional if you really want her alive."

I looked at Elaina for a moment before I said, "Alright Elaina.", then looking to Harper, "Do you know where the nearest doctor is supposed to be?",

"Assuming that she hasn't been killed yet there is another med-bay down the hallway near Vault 1, however I have to point out if we take her with us she may bleed out faster from being moved, and she will only slow us down."

Then Elaina looked like she was going to protest but instead she said, "As much as I want to disagree with him, he's right all we can do is leave her for whoever is coming here to help you," she paused before looking at Harper then seemed to have a thought before adding, "and him."

"Alright, Cora stay awake because help is coming.", "Sir," I said while looking at Harper before continuing, "how long until reinforcements get here?"

I watched as Harper raised his left arm and activated his Omni-tool and called Kai Leng. Apparently Kai Leng was doing well because the next thing I heard was "Mr. Stone, reinforcements are en-route and Kai Leng has been notified of her condition, also there are shuttles heading to the cargo loading bay on this level so we need to assume they have whatever they came here for."

"Cora, I have to go now, and I am sorry for ruining your armor."

My comment managed to get a soft chuckle from the woman I was holding in my arms however she said, "It's alright, I'll bill you later."

I sat there stunned for a moment before I replied, "Well if you're strong enough to laugh a little and joke around with me you can stay awake a bit longer can't you?"

"Only if I get to listen to a joke of yours later while I'm recovering.", I smiled a little at that comment.

"Alright I will tell you a joke while you're recovering; now I will see you later." I said quietly while I gently lowered her to the floor, getting a slight smile in response. I slowly stood and picked up my helmet and sword before I gestured to Elaina and Harper that it was time to go.

As I started walking down the hallway with Harper and Elaina following close behind I quietly asked Elaina, "You gave her something for the pain, didn't you?"

"Was it that obvious?" she had leaned in to whisper her reply.

"No, actually I just noticed when started acting a bit 'happier'. What did you give her anyway?"

"Morphine…"

I was absolutely shocked, and it showed when I asked, "You gave her morphine?"

"Technically yes, it's actually a chemical compound that has the same effects and basic makeup but it works just as well."

I looked at Elaina with narrowed eyes, "Don't ever give me a painkiller like that because if I am going to be that 'relaxed' about being injured it better be from a toe I hit on some furniture..."

We had been walking for almost a minute before we reached the fourth intersection making the turn to head to the Vault we were seen by a line of Troopers dug in behind a makeshift barricade of tables and a few crates, just now revealing themselves in order to fire. Harper was the first of us to react by diving back behind the corner we had jsut started to turn around, which was on our left, while Elaina pushed me to the right side of intersection before diving after me. I had landed roughly on my shoulder and I heard something pop as well as feeling a sharp pain in my shoulder. Of course what happened next was no picnic either, a certain black haired woman landed on top of my stomach just after I had just rolled over onto my back so I could use my left arm to pick myself up. Looking up I saw black hair and a pale face with green eyes and our eyes locked for a second before I said, "Nice throw, but the landing? I give it a gracious 5/10.", which earned a green colored eye-roll in response as well as a sharp jab in my right side from her left hand, which made me grunt in pain from its proximity to my now sore right shoulder.

Elaina didn't show much concern over it but I could tell she was a little worried, "Hey I didn't hit you that hard, are you hurt?"

I was still feeling pain from my shoulder, which was even worse as she got off of my stomach and had had taken a kneeling position just off to my right, "Yeah, my right shoulder."

Elaina brought up her right hand and activated her Omni-tool and scanned my shoulder quickly before saying, "Take a deep breath and count to three."

"What? Why do I-ow!" was all I could say before she grabbed my right shoulder and arm and twisted and pushed inwards, which allowed me to hear a very wet snap-pop and I gently rolled my shoulder expecting a lot of pain but instead I only felt an intense discomfort like someone had beaten my shoulder repeatedly and then I felt the burning sensation, granted my shoulder felt better compared to what it had been before Elaina had put it back in but it still hurt like hell, "Let me guess I dislocated my shoulder." I said while grinding my teeth in pain.

"Yes you did. Have you done it before?" she asked with some concern.

"No, and I have the feeling I may be doing it again sooner than I like."

"At least you're smart enough to know it is bound to happen." she said with a slightly crooked grin.

"Not funny." was all I managed to say in reply to her joke.

"HEY, if you two are done I think we have a station to clear!", that comment could only have come from one person here.

"Sir, Yes, SIR!" I had said in reply with a mock salute with my uninjured left arm and a completely straight face which compared with my shoulder length hair the reply had completely failed to make a serious impression.

There were at least ten Hecate Troopers holding the barricade blocking the hallway, to me it would have been a simple obstacle if I was playing Mass Effect 3, I would toss in a grenade or a singularity and clear it with a biotic combo, or more likely a tech explosion using incendiary rounds in my main weapon and use an Overload or Warp with the Turian Sentinel I usually used. In this case however I had non-canon equipment on my person, an Omni-tool with Overload, Cloak, a Phase Disruptor using my armor's kinetic barrier systems, and an Omni-blade combat app, that was not including my Hornet SMG, a single fragmentation grenade, and the ninjato so my options were a bit more realistic as far as what I was limited to. I also knew that if I messed up a little medi-gel wasn't going to cure a ruptured organ, broken bones, or a near death experience from being shot, nor was there any chance of a do-over if I did die.

"So do you have any suggestions Sir?" I directed to Harper after I had gotten up and placed myself at the corner of the intersection, which would be on my right side if I was standing in the middle of the intersection looking toward the barricade.

"Just one, don't get shot Mister Stone."

 _"Ha, as if that was an option for me, I didn't exactly want to get killed from anything other than old age at this point."_ I thought to myself bitterly before replying to Harper's reply, "Alright then."

I primed my last grenade and threw it so it would bounce off of the wall to land behind the barricade but I was disappointed, when it bounced from where I wanted it to I had a brief flicker of excitement because I was hoping for one of the Troopers to catch it in their chest, but instead of landing where I wanted it to it landed on top of the barricade and rolled across the top of it stopping in the middle of it when I saw what the crate it had landed on had labeled on its bright white form, Danger Highly Flammable, Contents Under Pressure. Widening my eyes I yelled for Harper to stay behind cover, before swinging myself back behind the corner I was using for cover myself, just in time to listen to a thunderous bang from down the hallway and watched several small crates and parts of other things as well, fly into the door on the opposite side of the intersection we were in leaving metal embedded in it.

Harper of course was yelling something that sounded suspiciously like, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"

"Trying not to blow up the ENTIRE station, just the parts where Hecate soldiers are dug in." I supplied with a slight chuckle.

Harper gave me a death glare with his creepy cybernetic eyes in reply but I seriously didn't care because the hallway was still in one piece, albeit scorched and filled with debris, but more importantly it was enemy free.

"Come on it isn't like we have all day!" I said quickly while starting to leave my cover before I saw the supposed Adept run out of a room on the right side of the hallway and throw a swirling ball of blue-purple light, diving below it before it could hit me I yelled out, "Biotic!", and dived behind what was left of a large crate about a meter in front of me which was where it apparently landed after being thrown from the explosion, and the Adept took up a position on the left side of the hallway behind part of an archway extending from what looked like a very simply furnished lounge, judging from what little of the interior I could see, I then realized this was going to be one serious fight as the Adept threw a biotic Warp towards the corner Elaina was behind which caused the metal plates on my side of it to sizzle as if it was exposed to extreme heat and a lingering blue light stayed in place for several seconds.

* * *

Third Person POV/Narrator's POV

Kai Leng had just entered the intersection where The Illusive Man; no, Jack Harper was what Ian Stone had called him, had told him that there was a Hecate operative they were supposed to stabilize and place into custody, he had arrived with three full squads of Cerberus soldiers (24 Troopers, and a pair of Centurions for every eight Troopers acting as an officer and another as a sergeant) not including three Troopers with the red cross emblem of a field medic on the left side of their chest and both of their armored shoulder pauldrons.

All of the Cerberus soldiers had fanned out across the intersection and its security post to cover the hallway while looking for survivors of the initial attack, but his own attention was on the state of disarray the intersection was in. There were eight Hecate Troopers, five Guardians, and a boot in the intersection in and around the security desk and its surrounding architectural additions.

 _"What the Hell is a boot doing here?"_ Kai Leng had wondered only briefly before he realized something was still _in_ the boot, _"Oh, that's why…"_

Then thinking it would be a good idea to hurry toward the Vault on this level he looked for the Hecate operative they were supposed to keep in stable condition for "informational purposes" as The Illusive Man/Jack Harper had ordered. He saw the prone form of someone wearing a heavily modified version of the armor issued to N7 Shadows who was lying on the floor with bandaging on their chest where some of the armor had been stripped away, moving over to the Hecate Shadow he kneeled with his sword firmly in his left hand away from her hands and out of easy reach as an additional precaution against a potential trap.

As he stepped closer to her she visibly moved her head slightly in order to watch him approach and he heard her say something that sounded like, "You're the help that that man with the long hair was talking about I hope?"

Kai Leng noted she had said it with a very jovial and somewhat slurred manner.

"The man with the long hair, do you mean a Caucasian man about six feet tall and seven, six' eight, long black hair, and a very deep bass voice?" Kai Leng asked the slumped figure.

Then the Hecate Shadow had asked in a slightly slurred voice, "Yes, is he a friend of yours?"

"Hardly, he only just arrived on this station today to meet with someone." Kai Leng replied after a moment of hesitation, mostly because the woman he was talking to was not only tired but obviously drugged making her barely understandable.

"Well I thought I would ask because he didn't seem like the kind of man to break a promise to a lady." she supplied almost absent-mindedly

"Is that so? Wha-" but before Kai Leng could finish his questioning he had redirected his attention to the sound of a massive explosion further down the hallway and saw a wall of flame impact the wall on his right which had the added effect of highlighting a figure against it.

Then almost instinctually Kai Leng addressed the Cerberus soldiers around him "Lieutenant Hanson you and your squad will stay here and make sure that medic is going to be safe while tending to her, the rest of you with me."

Kai Leng had broken into a run down the hallway with the remaining twenty soldiers following him about ten feet behind him, when he had reached the second intersection he watched as a blue-purple blur hit the wall on the right side of the last intersection which caused him to run faster than he had been. He was almost halfway through the third intersection which was almost ten meters wide, which allowed cargo to be moved between the labs and several cargo lifts and the main cargo dock for the level he was on, once he had crossed the intersection he could see two people firing down the hallway on the left side of the intersection slowing to a brisk walk he could see Harper firing an undoubtedly salvaged Avenger at an unseen enemy, and then there was the black haired woman that once Kai Leng saw he immediately thought, _"She should be either dead or in a medical facility by now so how is she still alive?"_

Upon reaching Harper he slowed to a walk and asked him, "Sir, what's the situation?"

"The situation is-", Harper's reply was interrupted by the sound of a Phase Disruptor firing twice followed by a scream of pain, which caused him to peer around the corner to see what had happened and instead of seeing Ian Stone wounded or dead he saw him standing over the Hecate Adept just as Ian un-holstered his Hornet and fired twice into the Hecate soldier causing their pained cries to cease as he removed his sword from the dead soldier's stomach, he then turned and walked back towards the intersection revealing a twenty-five year old man with shoulder length black hair, and grey eyes with a now haunted look to them as if this man was silently condemning himself for his actions.

"Sir have you noticed anything about Mister Stone while you have been with him?", Kai Leng asked Harper in a hushed tone.

Harper looked at Kai Leng with a look of serious concern, "Kai Leng, I have seen more professional soldiers come into this organization than you could possibly imagine, and I can tell you right now he is definitely not a professional."

Harper looked to Ian as he walked to the intersection and leaned his back against the corner that the Hecate defector Elaina had been using for cover and had slowly slid down to a sitting position and Elaina had cautiously moved over to Ian and seemed to talk to him in a soothing manner quietly before she looked to Harper and silently mouthed, "Talk to him."

That single action told Harper that Ian was not taking the situation well, "Mister Stone is not a professional but he knows how to perform dangerous tasks under pressure. That tells me that he has potential if someone was to train him and prepare him for almost anything that may occur, that and the information he has provided has proven to be authentic."

Kai Leng stood there for a moment evaluating what Harper had said and looked over to Ian who had just started talking to the black haired woman that was kneeling next to Ian as was leaning his back against the wall but he saw the worried look on her face, that told him she was worried about his well-being for some reason, and then there was Ian Stone, his expression was almost blank but his eyes had the haunted look he had seen on many soldiers when he had been with the Alliance Navy. It was the same look he had even had when he had killed for the first time.

"It was his first time killing anyone correct, sir?" Kai Leng asked Harper quietly.

Harper replied, "Supposedly yes, but that 'first time' was almost ten minutes ago when he killed two soldiers who had us pinned back in the med-bay near that security post." Harper had added a slight nod and a brief hand gesture indicating a location down the hall Kai Leng had just arrived from to his reply. "He also showed some signs of abstract thinking that allowed him to increase the effectiveness of his armor's Cloak system to a certain extent."

Kai Leng was now looking at Ian as he asked Harper, "Such as?"

"He had me shut-down the med-bay's lighting which forced the Hecate soldiers to retreat back into the hallway. I don't even know if he knew that they didn't have night combat mods for their armor or not, however it did show me he was willing to gamble under conditions that had the odds in his favor. That was not necessarily the best choice at the time, however it did allow him to take them down without injury."

Kai Leng was now looking back to Harper and looked as if he had a sudden thought and suggested, "Sir, maybe we should discuss this later considering that the enemy is almost certainly moving towards the cargo docks on this level by now."

Harper looked at Kai Leng as if he had just realized what he had said was the best course of action, "I'm just tired of all of these unknowns being dropped on us all of a sudden, before today I had never even heard of this Hecate organization and suddenly I have black armored troops sweeping through our most secure facility and also the best kept secret Cerberus has been able to produce." then suddenly as if he had just thought of something he had forgotten, " Do you know if they have gotten off the station with anything from the labs?"

"Other than some of the Biotics labs on level thirty-four, no, they have not sir."

"Good, let us make sure they don't get away with anything else from the labs then.", then with that last comment said he turned to Ian who was across the hall sitting where he had been, then he slowly walked to Ian before saying, "Mr. Stone, are you able to continue?", Harper had been expecting Ian to say no and remain sitting.

Instead Ian's head turned down the hallway toward the Vault and Harper heard him say, "I am ready to follow these Hecate bastards through the Terminus Systems if I have to, especially since I know what they will do to even unarmed civilians in their path," then he raised his eyes to Harper who felt a distinct feeling of almost remorse, not for himself or the people his organization had lost but for Ian Stone whose eyes held a deep and empty look to them but deep within he could see something else, hate, and determination. Before he could offer to help Ian up he was already standing by Hornet raised in his right hand and suddenly he heard the Vault door open and out stepped the Hecate soldier in armor similar to his organization's Dragoon forces and he watched as the soldier spoke with an eletronically distorted voice:

"So this is the group of Cerberus dogs that has caused so much of a problem for my men," then the Hecate Dragoon looked around at the group in the intersection before continuing, "I am not impressed, and then there is you.", they looked directly at Elaina before continuing, "you're still alive, I should have known a recruit for the Warlord initiative would be harder to kill than a regular human."

Elaina brought her Argus up to her shoulder while she said, "I was a 'regular' human until those BUTCHERS were authorized to 'improve' us you arrogant bastard!".

While the exchange between Elaina and the Hecate 'Dragoon' was playing out Harper and Kai Leng, as well as the Cerberus soldiers who had just arrived at the intersection, watched in silence behind cover before the exchange was finally broken by Ian.

"Oi Fishbowl!" which caused both Elaina and the 'Dragoon' to suddenly direct their attention to Ian, "Didn't your mother teach you any manners or at least tell you how to talk to a lady?"

"Shouldn't you be looking for your missing girlfriend or is that promise too much for you to keep?" was all the Hecate 'Dragoon' said in reply with the same cold manner of the other Hecate soldiers.

Ian suddenly tensed up, before he relaxed as he felt it, a faint and completely foreign presence lurking at the edge of his thoughts.

Then thinking to himself, _"That can't be possible, however… if it is…,"_ Ian looked directly at the now silent Hecate Dragoon before he let an almost feral grin crawl its way onto his features before he thought of every scene featuring an actual Reaper from the Mass Effect series that he could think of and pictured them all in his mind speaking, _"I am the vanguard of your destruction."_ and then his grin grew even more when he saw the 'Dragoon' tense up and placed his left hand on his head as if it was in pain before Ian said, "So you're some kind of mind reader huh? You know, that is a talent that has all kinds of problems such as the inability to filter out what you see if you don't have the experience to do so."

Then his grin faded completely as he pictured one more thing, a cartoon of a Dragoon in all black being flattened by a giant boot with a Cerberus emblem on the side, and the resounding crunch of bones shattering and a very wet smacking sound that sounded more like a massive thunderclap happening inches from his ear, all of which made the Hecate 'Dragoon' take a sudden step back holding his head from the mental image, and accompanying phantom sounds in agony before he looked up to see the barrel of a Hornet SMG tap against his helmet's visor he blinked in response as his mind was trying to comprehend what was happening and the sudden flash from the barrel was the last thing he saw.

* * *

Ian's POV

" _Well that was brutal but at least I don't have him poking around in my mind anymore. P_ _ersonally I am surprised that actually worked, I wonder if the boot was a bit much however."_ , Ian thought as the body of the Hecate 'Dragoon' hit the floor.

"So are we going to stop them from getting off of this station or what?" I asked to anyone who was listening before I started to continue towards the edge of the open Vault door.

Looking inside I saw a lot of Prothean artifacts, a few more objects that were made of the same grey and yellow materials as the Monolith and 'The Key', however there were a few items I didn't recognize. Chunks of scrap metal, there were more than a few crates lying around with labels filled with seemingly endless combinations of letters and numbers, tables with parts of large machines scattered across their surface, and in one corner a large crate stood out which simply stated, Artifact X-00-01 which seemed to draw my attention to it as if it was consciously doing so.

"What is in there?", I asked Harper who replied with a shrug before saying, "We don't know, I had purchased it off of a private collector who had hosted an auction in order to pay off a debt she owed the government of Illium in back-taxes, and I was lucky enough to convince her to allow me the chance to buy several items before the auction's date was set."

"You are one smooth businessman I will give you that much." I replied with a deadpan look. I then looked around the Vault for anything that seemed out of place or was possibly missing pausing for a moment when I saw a table that had an empty display stand.

I was about to point it out when I heard Harper's Omni-tool activate and I heard a brief conversation take place which indicated that the Hecate forces were falling back to the cargo dock one corridor over and that the forces heading there to cut them off were bogged down at the docking bays main entrance. We had all ran over there as quickly as possible and I had gotten shot in my left shoulder by what had sounded like a pistol of some kind, spinning me around causing me to catch myself on Elaina's shoulder taking her to the ground with me, causing the both of us to just barely miss being cut-down by a Revenant wielding Hecate Trooper, although the Cerberus Trooper behind us was not so fortunate.

"Elaina are you alright?"

"I should be asking you that you bloody idiot," she said as she brought out a small orange colored capsule from her armor's combat belt and broke it in one hand as she dug into my shoulder carefully and finally, after a considerable amount of pain at my expense, pulled a small sliver out of my shoulder causing me to grunt in pain before she applied the capsule's contents to my shoulder, which caused my shoulder to become numb after a few agonizing seconds.

"I told you Medi-gel does wonders."

"Okay, okay, you were right about Medi-gel, no need to get all excited about it Elaina.", I looked at Elaina who was kneeling over me, " _Wait, why is she kneeling over me?"_ , I then realized I had been placed flat on my back from what was previously a sitting position by her so she could apply the Medi-gel where I was out of harm's way.

"Elaina, how much blood did I lose?" I asked with a slightly tired slur.

"Uh…" she looked at my shoulder with wide eyes, "not much, why?"

"You are a terrible liar…", I was having a little difficulty staying awake right now, I tried clearing my head by slowly shaking my head because I wanted to stay awake but I found it difficult to do so, as my head slowly fell into the slowly enclosing darkness at the edge of my vision when I heard Elaina say:

"Just remember I owe you, I won't let anything happen to you Ian, I won't let anything happen to you.", and the last part of that sentence echoed over and over as I lost consciousness.

* * *

Ian's POV, June 1st, 2180

I jolted awake clutching my left shoulder where I had a faint scar from the surgery to repair the torn muscles and place flash-cloned bone, and cartilage where the damage was too extensive for normal surgery. I looked around expecting to find myself in that cargo loading bay however I was only seeing a familiar dark room lit by a deep red-orange light from outside a window, a metal desk in front of me, and on it my personal office computer, a half-emptied glass of a dark amber liquid from a nearly empty bottle of bourbon circa 2178 sat beside an active data-pad and a small stack of data-pads sat on the far corner in a bin labeled outgoing, and an empty bin that stated ingoing sat empty and unused. I realized then I had just relived an old and terrible memory.

I sat up in my chair stretching my limbs and I said to myself, "God I haven't thought about how I got here in a while, even if it was a nightmare."

I looked over to a palm-sized grey object sitting nearby with glowing yellow lines tracing patterns of amber light across its surface, placing my hand on it gently I ran my hand over its smooth surface expecting a slight pressure as the being called Oracle, on the other end of it, would attempt to connect to me after almost a year of silence but there was absolutely nothing.

I slowly stood up and opened up my Omni-tool, which I hadn't used the glove version for almost a year after receiving the surgery to receive a model that was implanted beneath the skin. This particular model was designed to be almost undetectable by most sensors and had been designed and produced by Cerberus for its operatives.

I checked for messages on my Omni-tool but instead of being flooded with messages like I was expecting my inbox to be, I only found the messages I had saved from the day prior, so I checked the time quickly and I groaned when I saw it, it was four in the morning which meant I had just under two hours before I was supposed to be getting ready for close quarters combat training with Kai Leng, followed by almost an hour down at the firing range learning how to properly use a sniper rifle with Elaina, and then my personal favorite Combat Application training with Eric, a combat engineer from the garrison onboard Cronos Station.

In simple terms meant I had to be in my quarters in ten minutes to get a shower and a meal in about twenty minutes before I took my jog around the track area, the thought of how much of a hurry I needed to be in made my head hurt. Sighing to myself I decided I might as well get started so I carefully poured what was left of my Bourbon into the bottle before putting both the bottle and the glass carefully into the bottom drawer of my desk and grabbed the M-11 Suppressor from the top drawer and placed it on my uniform's right magnetic strip, while I may not have been the kind of person to modify clothing without good reason I didn't waste any time having a uniform tailored to my build, and had a few modifications put in place such as a limited kinetic barrier system, and magnetic strips for a shotgun in the small of my back, an assault rifle/sniper rifle on my right shoulder and another one on my right thigh for pistols or submachineguns, my only problem with the uniform in question was that it was dry-clean only. My Omni-tool also had a wide selection of combat applications ranging from a simple Incinerate, to an Omni-blade melee application in case I decided to get REALLY creative.

Before I left the office I turned to look out the massive curved window to gaze at the star Anadius in its crimson glory, basking in its warm glow thinking of Sharon and how I failed her that day. I still hadn't found even a trace of her whereabouts even with the massive resources Cerberus had at its disposal, and the only time I had found anything even relating to her was when I had traveled to a Hecate facility dug into an ice covered moon in orbit of a gas giant out in the Attican Traverse and found a prison cell that hadn't been used in almost three months, according to the logs found in the facility's computer cores, and in the prison cell I had found Sharon's leather N7 jacket and her Tarot Cards, it had been the only time I had found any trace of her since that day.

Banishing the thoughts threatening to drag me down into the darkness of my mind once more I turned towards the door which once I had gotten within a meter of it had opened to reveal a sight which I had become accustomed to since I had joined Cerberus, the hallway outside Harper's office, which I also shared since I had joined the organization. Harper was rather generous when he accepted my request to join Cerberus including my request for director level access privileges, which unfortunately was severely limited when it came to accessing the Vaults, only Vault 1 and 37 were open to me without his express permission, I was also allowed full access to any research files, or any other reports I requested.

This didn't nearly interest me as much as what was in Vault 37, a Prothean device that Miranda had reverse engineered to recreate a device the Protheans which they had hoped would be a viable alternative to using the Mass Relays for Faster Than Light Travel by creating and manipulating spatial rifts to essentially tunnel into a realm where travel was measured in 'relative time' compared to distance, I couldn't even begin to understand the physics or even some of the theories involved but Miranda was kind enough to put it in "English". As she had explained it, the FTL system that the Protheans _had_ managed to develop, but had failed to produce, created a passage through a dimension similar to Subspace, which was entirely theoretical according to every scientist from the Alliance to the Salarian Union, through which a ship equipped with a Prothean "Null Space Drive (or N-Space Drive) could make a trip across the galaxy without using the Relay network, which could take up to several months even when using a ship's Eezo core at maximum capacity to power the Mass Effect Field to stable levels well past the normal safe limits in order to make a single run from Earth in the Local Cluster to Omega in just under a month and a half instead of maybe two to three or more depending upon the ship's drive system and turn it into a trip that could take maybe a week or less depending on the mass of the vessel which was still a deciding factor in travel speed, especially since the higher a ship's mass the longer it took to have it change its speed by either accelerating or decelerating.

Then of course there was the equipment I was allowed to requisition from almost every station under our control as well as an operational awareness of what operatives were working where and when within the Alliance as well as Council Space which surprisingly we had managed to get a rather large number of non-human operatives once I had pushed Harper to begin recruiting aliens actively and changed the purpose and policy of Cerberus itself even though it was an uphill battle that had taken almost until December of 2179 to achieve that goal even after I had convinced Harper that in order for us to have a fighting chance against the Reapers we needed to change how Cerberus worked and everything it had stood for just so we could gain support from the Council let alone the Systems Alliance, and that what it stood for before I had arrived and how this organization operated was wrong.

The aliens we had recruited were kept away from any operations that Cerberus had in progress, or at least any of the operations that its Alliance handlers actually kept tabs on. All of this eventually brought myself as well as Harper to our biggest problem; how do we work around the Alliance without getting shutdown, or worse, until 2183 when Cerberus actually left the control of the Alliance? This was our biggest concern because I had to share a certain amount of information with him in order to make sure we were both on the same page, most notably my knowledge of exactly what the Reapers were, and a few things we needed to worry about immediately such as avoiding unnecessary attention from a certain Alliance official in 2183, after that was brought up the Cerberus cell and the personnel responsible for Akuze were now a group of unfortunate victims of a massive Thresher Maw attack when one of their experiments suspicously "failed". There was one condition to my position at Cerberus other than the information I had to reveal to him; he had me training alongside Kai Leng and many other operatives including the now recruited Elaina when I was off duty in order to make me into an effective field asset in the event I was needed for such a task.

I was almost to the elevator when I heard a flanging voice call out, "Hold that elevator!"

As the door was about to close an almost breathless male, grey-skinned, and bare-faced Turian (I had found out that bare-faced Turians were far from being untrustworthy as several just refused to wear the facial markings believing that they were just a status symbol and nothing more, and that there were more than a few Turians who did not wear them because they were born on ships, or stations without actual Turian neighborhoods and believed that their distinguishing markings were their pride, skill, and their well-known Turian discipline were all that they needed to identify themselves to their community), in a white lab coat had reached the elevator just in time to cause the door's sensors to stop the elevator doors and allow him, and myself since I had arrived there at the same time he did, access to the elevator which was currently holding a pair of human Troopers and a single Asari wearing the standard crewman uniform.

I heard the Turian say, "Director Stone, I haven't seen you up here this early before. Where were you headed?"

I turned to sneak a quick look at his name tag, Dr. Carek Biotic Research Division it had said which made me think briefly, _"Dr. Carek? I think his name has crossed my desk before… ah… that's right he had a proposal for modifying the Dragoon armor's Biotic Amp system for use on the Valkyrie Mech chassis."_

I replied, "I am heading down to Deck 24 Dr. Carek."

"Alright," he said while hitting the control combinations for Deck 24 before he continued, "by the way sir, I thought you were off duty by now."

As he had been asking that question I could see the Asari, a Yeoman called Oleena if I wasn't mistaken however I couldn't remember her last name offhand, give Dr. Carek a look that screamed _"He's Director Stone, I think you could probably think of a better question than that!"_

I decided to answer his request in the most honest way possible, "Honestly I am off duty, I unfortunately made the mistake to stay up following up on a lead instead of sleeping.", my reply instead of drawing a shocked gasp like I had expected to come out of Yeoman Oleena from the fact I even replied or Dr. Carek who I had expected to launch even more questions at me.

My reply had actually managed to get a slight chuckle from the two Troopers in the back of the elevator and one of them started in on the conversation, "I know the feeling sir, I had just gotten back from one of those anti-piracy raids out in the Traverse and decided some decent sleep was better than getting out of my armor."

I mentally winced at the thought because Kai Leng had me run in a full suit of the armor the Trooper was wearing, it was officially designated as Frontline Combat Armor Model 3-A but it was more commonly known as the 'Red-eyes Frontline armor', designed for comfort and flexibility in the field of battle, it was well thought of up until it came time to sit or remain in a prone position for long periods of time. In the case of lying down on your back in the armor the only problem was you could literally feel every edge on each of the armor plates through the ceramic composite nano-weave in the armor, and with sitting it was only comfortable if you kept sitting in a completely upright position otherwise you could run the risk of causing some of the armor plating in the lower back to lock-up. Suffice it to say the Frontline Combat Armor Model 3-B was rapidly replacing the 3-A whenever it became available in mass quantities from our manufacturing facilities at my express orders, although Petrovsky was adamant in his support of the 3-A. I made the point to him by making him wear the full suit of the 3-A under the same conditions his men did, it was more than enough to turn his opinion around.

I was about to say something else to Dr. Carek when I heard Yeoman Oleena say something I hadn't heard completely so I had turned my head slightly to look at her and I asked her politely, "Ms… T'Kari was it?" judging from the nod and the shy, 'Yes Sir.' I had heard my memory was still fairly good as far as names went, I had always been terrible with remembering them before now, "Would you mind repeating what you had just now?"

"I was just wondering if you have heard about the Memorial Services on Monday, sir."

"Yes I have, the Memorial is going to be taking place from 9 AM to 11 AM, it will also commemorate the opening of the Memorial Lounge on Deck 30, and the reopening of Remembrance Hall on Deck 14. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

"There is one thing actually, I had heard that… you had lost someone too and I was wondering if you were going to be joining us during the Memorial."

I stood silent for a moment before I replied, "I believe my friend may still be alive, however," I looked back to Oleena, "I would be honored to be joining you and your friends for the Services." I could see a faint smile forming on 'her' face and the faint nod she gave me.

"Then my friends and I will be looking forward to meeting you down in Remembrance Hall at 10 AM then?" she asked.

"I'll be there Ms. T'Kari."

"Please call me Oleena or Leena everyone else does."

I smiled a little in response especially since I preferred to use nicknames in the case of aliens, unless their given name was easy to pronounce, "Alright, Leena it is so just call me Ian all of my friends do," which she nodded in reply with a slight smile. Then I directed my attention back to Dr. Carek "Also it is a pleasure meeting you in person Dr. Carek; I believe you had submitted a report on modifying the Valkyrie Mechs correct?"

"Ah, I see it did get to your desk then." he said absently as he watched the screen indicating the floor the elevator was at.

I had been putting a lot of thought into his proposal however I had been far too busy managing the development of the new reconnaissance frigate that I had requested our shipwrights to design, "It did and I apologize for not getting back to you until now, and not through the normal channels, however I have been putting a lot of thought into your proposal and I feel I have to reject it," I saw his expression start to fade a bit but I continued, "the reason why I have chosen to do so is more of a question of whether or not the development of a new Mech designed specifically for the use of Biotic Amps, and Tech Amps as well, wouldn't be more productive."

I could see his expression change from one of disappointment to one of surprise, "Are you sure sir? The Valkyrie Mech was a massive project that we would need to recreate."

I looked at Dr. Carek again and said, "I realize you wanted to modify the existing Valkyrie chassis, however the design of the Valkyrie was heavily based around the Eezo cores installed in the main body as well as the thrusters, so in order to install the Biotic Amps you have proposed you need to ensure the stability of the power systems as well, so the best suggestion I can give is to work on designing a less complex version of the Valkyrie made expressly for ground operations first. I can ensure that the resources are there for you to redesign it properly, however I want to make sure the Amps will work as you have promised, and considering how powerful the Amps you have suggested could be when they are installed as shown in your proposal…", I turned to properly face him, "the results of a properly trained pilot using the…," I then realized he hadn't named the Mech in question so I decided to drop the line of conversation for now in favor of a new topic, "Out of curiosity have you decided on a name for this Project?"

"Actually I hadn't thought of it much."

I was surprised he didn't have a name selected but I continued with my original topic but I decided to avoid the lack of a name now, "The results of a properly trained pilot using the original Valkyrie would be remarkable while even an untrained biotic using this new mech model you have proposed is potentially a walking fire support team so as far as I am concerned, we lost a lot of people last year and I don't want to lose anymore."

"Will I have the choice of who is on my research staff?"

I had to applaud him inwardly on the brazen request since he was normally a rather quiet individual from what I could gather from his mannerisms, however I have a feeling I know who he is going to request for his team, "I already have a good idea about what you will be looking for in your research staff so I would like to suggest Dr. Olson from the original Valkyrie Project as well as Doctors, Bryton and Colson from Project Phoenix, I will forward the necessary files to you as soon as possible.", I quickly opened my Omni-tool and made notes on who I had to contact and what files I needed to forward to Dr. Carek.

The conversations that followed had changed to a far more relaxed and non-business related topics until the elevator had stopped on my floor where Dr. Carek and Yeoman Oleena had also stepped off with Oleena walking off into the lounge, and Dr. Carek heading off in the direction of the Biotic Research labs on this floor, I on the other hand headed off for the dark side of the station where my quarters were located.

I was almost two meters away from the doorway that led into my quarters when I heard a familiar voice call out, "Hey Ian!"

I immediately thought, _"Oh no, not when I am dressed in the clothes I had on yesterday…"_ placing a smile on my face for the sake of Elaina who was running down the hall towards me I said a greeting in return.

"Hey Elaina, I didn't expect you to be up this early."

"Neither did I, nor did I expect you to fall asleep in your office again either."

I sighed audibly, "I didn't plan on it Elaina, I also didn't plan on the amount of paperwork this job would have for following up on a lead either." after I had commented on the amount of paperwork involved in this job Elaina had stopped running and was now breathing heavily from her run around the station.

"So Elaina, how many times did you run around this deck today?"

"Twice, why?"

I was honestly going to be surprised about that no matter how many times I hear it, because it essentially was about three hundred meters short of a 20 mile run if you managed to keep to the outer hallways both times around, "I'm just worried Elaina, after all you are only human, no matter what Hecate did to you in the Warlord Project."

I mentally shuddered as I had thought about it briefly, _"The Warlord Project, one of Hecate's first super-soldier projects, it focused on the extensive use of advanced cybernetics being used to augment physical endurance as well as wholesale genetic modifications to the point Elaina, and two other former members of Hecate we had literally rescued from one of their 'Augmentive Surgery Sessions', in other words I truly pitied any and all Operatives from Hecate who had been subjected to these experiments not only because of the nature of the surgery so much as just how much damage they did to each subject's humanity. In the case of Elaina she was subjected to surgeries and procedures designed to increase human regeneration in order to imitate a Krogan's regenerative abilities and endurance, the cost however was the inability to feel pain from external injuries such as gunshots, cracked bones, or even dislocated bones or joints, and unfortunately for several others who underwent the procedure she knew malignant tumors were also another side affect many others had received."_

She looked at me with something akin to a look of appreciation before she said, "Thank you for saying that Ian. I know I'm still human, but it's just so hard for me to get a tough workout you know." her expression broke into a bit of a smile and I couldn't help but chuckle a little at her reply.

"I know Elaina just don't push yourself."

"I won't, see you later down at the firing range Ian."

"See you later Elaina." I called out to the now running figure as I opened the door to my quarters when I remembered something, Sasha didn't get her steak for breakfast.

"Oh shit!", I had said in alarm as a grey colored, with dark red-brown stripes, 130 pound varren jumped me and laid me out flatter than a Krogan could have at this point.

"Sasha get off I can't breathe…"

"Rrrl?" Sasha did a little whine while cocking her head off to her right and started to lick my face.

"Oh, gah! Sasha come on get off!", I tried pushing her off before all of a sudden I heard a deep bellowing laugh off to my right, _"Oh great now who is it that I have to worry about ?"_ I thought.

I looked off to my right and saw the only Krogan in Cerberus, "Urdnot Graul, what's so funny?"

"HA-HA-HA, Nothing other than how that varren is acting, forget to feed her?"

"More like I fell asleep in my office and I haven't gotten the chance to.", I figured it was probably worse than just forgetting to feed her.

"Sasha, get off now!" I added with a little bit of a hushed whisper,"Or you won't be getting the steak, just the ration packs."

I gently nudged her off to the side as she finally let me get up only for me to hear a low yet almost amused, "Rarl…" and clawed feet walk behind me as the door to my quarters closed and I walked into the small kitchen I had on the right side of my quarters. Moving for the fridge I heard the same clawed feet move around in their usual excited manner as I grabbed out the plate with the steak I had taken out of the freezer last night and flipped the plate over dropping the steak in Sasha's bowl on the floor, and I watched as she almost devoured it in maybe half a minute almost savoring every bite, and when she was finished I pulled out a small box of treats that made her fish-like eyes widen slightly and I heard an excited "Wark! Wa-wark!" from Sasha as I grabbed out one of the biscuits she seemed to love eating, it was technically an emergency ration for a Krogan packed with proteins, and various vitamin supplements, amongst other dietary needs.

I said, "Sit," and surprisingly enough the giant dog/lizard sat down with a giant… grin… on her face and was following my hand's every movement before the biscuit was airborne, followed thereafter by a second one, both of which she caught and tossed into her bowl.

"That is one thing I love about you Sasha." I said as I put the box back into the cupboard before patting her on her side before I scratched between her shoulder blades lightly, causing the meter and a half long varren to lean into my right leg with a satisfied, "Gorrlll….."

"Unlike most varren you don't make a mess when you eat." I said as I started to walk towards my bathroom which I heard a loud crunch, smack, smack, and the sound of a long serpentine tongue lick up the scraps of a once fine, one pound beef steak.

* * *

I went into my bathroom and took my shower as quickly as possible, and when I walked out in my bathrobe I saw Sasha curled up on my sofa, and I shook my head slightly at how she was curled up on it with her head hanging off of the front with her lower jaw hanging open slightly, licking her lips every so often as if she was trying to find leftovers from her steak as I walked into my bedroom, I grabbed my gym bag, threw on my exercise gear, and grabbed the black business suit I had hanging on a rack in my closet and placed the suit I had previously worn on the side of my bed so I could grab it later to take down to the laundry room for my dry-cleaning later in that day.

It was nearly twenty minutes since I had first arrived back in my quarters when I had locked the door to my quarters on my way to the gym down on Deck 25, or to be more accurate my own personal Hell for the next two and a half hours because I would be spending a half hour running through weights, a quick jog around the station which would be about another half hour just running around it once assuming foot traffic would be accommodating, and finally the following hour and a half would be Kai Leng kicking my ass up and down the sparring ring in the gym. My weight lifting was uneventful to say the least other than the occasional glances I garnered from people including Leena.

She gave a casual "Hello sir, I mean Ian."

"Nice to see you too Leena." I said in reply, and before I knew it she had already left the gym with a small group consisting of a lone male Turian, a single Salarian which I recognized from our Intelligence division, and a pair of humans, a man and a woman, and yet another Asari I didn't recognize. It had been almost five minutes since I had finished up with my weight lifting and readied myself for my run around the station, when I had just left the locker room I readied myself by doing a few more stretches and placed a pair of ear-buds in my ears so I could listen to music while I ran, before I could turn my Omni-tool's music player on I heard a high pitched voice call out my name.

"Director Stone, I was hoping to catch you before your run."

I turned to see a brown colored Salarian with light tan speckling on their skin around their eyes and their 'horn-like' protrusions, wearing a typically styled Salarian lab coat which was normally issued within the Salarian Special Tasks Group, which reminded me of where I had actually recruited him as well as who he was. "Ah, Dr. Ulan, what brings you down here?"

"Ah you stopped, most excellent, I would wish to discuss budget concerns regarding the new stealth systems for the Fury Project."

I stood there for a moment wondering just how over-budget the Fury Project was going to be by the end of the month, which was the only reason I could think of that he would bother discussing anything like this without it being brought up in the office I shared with Harper.

"Do you think you can discuss this while running?" I asked indicating the hallway with a thumb pointing down the hall, to which Dr. Ulan twitched his upper lip slightly, before taking his lab coat off and folding it over his right arm and tied it quickly into something resembling a duffel bag and tossed it over his right shoulder, before he finally said, "Learned many things in STG, this however is one of the least science oriented life lessons."

I just grinned in reply before asking, "Well shall we?", and Dr. Ulan nodded.

It was about a minute into my run when Dr. Ulan started to explain what was wrong with the budget for the Project. I was surprised when he said it was not actually an issue with the budget but more of a problem with the cost to retrofit the Hecate frigate Petrovsky's troops had managed to secure during the attack on this station last year, "Your request to modify the Hecate frigate is going to be higher in cost than expected, by nearly thirty percent, which will just include the actual systems being modified or replaced, and then there are the systems their organization originally installed."

"What about them?" I asked, allowing curiosity to slip into my voice.

"The Thrust Channels, and their Omni-directional mass effect drives appear to be unable to be removed from their current hard points without losing their functionality."

With a slight drop in my shoulders I asked, "You mean that several of the frigate's specialized equipment have been directly tied into the ship's systems in such a way that they cannot be removed at all?"

"Yes, that is the problem, however on my own initiative, I have made several attempts to copy the systems in their current state which appear to be accurate and function properly in all simulations," which he paused for a moment allowing me to go over the information and my pace slowed slightly before he continued, "I have discovered several redundant memory cores in the aft hull beneath the ship's Blue Box they had installed inside of a compartment shielded from sensors."

I stopped my run and placed my hands on my knees to catch my breath while I looked at him."You mean to tell me Dr. Ulan, that they had hidden memory cores on that ship? Have you turned them over to Intel?", I asked with a hint of urgency in my voice.

"No, I have turned them over to our computer sciences division."

My eyebrows shot up and I straightened myself to my full height before replying, "You mean to tell me you handed them over to our computer sciences division without any idea about what was in them?!"

"No, I had an idea as to what was in them, I however was hoping they could find a way around the firewalls they had in place in some of the more isolated, and heavily protected data files, the contents for most of the internal storage, however were navigational charts,"

I was absolutely confused now, "Navigational charts? For what exactly?"

"Mostly galactic maps, basic navigational data, and a backup black box, however there were several areas that were accessed repeatedly, such as the Arquilan Cascade, the Arquilan Rift, and the Arquilan Void which drew my team's interest."

"Aren't those areas just inside the borders of Hierarchy space and wasn't that where they had a temporary staging ground during the First Contact War?" I asked with more even more curiosity slipping into my voice than I had intended, however it didn't seem to affect him in any way.

"Very good, have you been studying military history?"

"No, I only studied major conflicts their locations, and the mistakes that lead to those conflicts. What I don't understand is why they would have maps for the Arquilan cluster, it is so out of the way it is almost completely unexplored, and not just from its isolated location but isn't there supposed to be navigational hazards out there that actually have the area declared off limits to non-military ships?"

"Yes, anomalous sensor readings, rogue asteroids and other stellar bodies, the STG had numerous reports of missing spacecraft sent out over the years, anywhere up to five or more missing in one month in some cases, most of them were sent by private corporations under contract for exploring the cluster. I am also aware of a Hierarchy naval expedition sent out to explore the Arquilan Cluster, none of the nine Hierarchy ships were ever seen again including three cruisers sent in after a Black Talon operated frigate fleet, it is unknown if the pirates were ever seen again either."

I waited a moment going over the information he had given me once more before continuing, "How complete were the charts?"

"According to the size of the data packets in the cores, they were very well documented as far as my team could tell."

I opened my Omni-tool so I could call up Harper, and sent messages to Kai Leng and Elaina telling them I would be running late with my training sessions.

"Sir, I apologize for the interruption, I realize you just got into the office by now however I am calling to notify you of a possible lead on Hecate's operations in Council Space." I quietly motioned to Dr. Ulan to follow me as I waited for Harper to reply, and I turned back towards the gym, and by extension my locker where my suit, and personal items were currently residing.

I heard Harper reply over my Omni-tool, "A possible lead? How solid is this lead?"

"The lead is several backup memory cores found on the Hecate frigate _The Revenant_ , however the memory cores are currently being examined in our computer science labs for any hidden data packets or other 'surprises'."

"Keep me informed. Who brought this to your attention Mr. Stone?"

"Doctor Ulan, a scientist on my pet project."

"He found the data cores then?"

"Correct sir."

"Alright, I will expect a report in eight hours Mr. Stone. Where is this lead pointing us exactly?"

"You are going to hate it honestly, the Arquilan Cluster."

There was silence on the other end of the call for about six seconds before I heard, "That is an extremely isolated and dangerous part of space Mr. Stone, do you have a suggestion on where to look?"

"None yet I was going to wait with following it until the cores have been analyzed further."

"Is there anything else you wish to tell me Mr. Stone?"

"Well…," I looked over to my locker for a moment before replying, "I would like you to dig a little deeper into NexGen again, especially their branch on Illium, and their research facility on Noveria."

I waited for a moment before I heard a sigh on the other side of the line before I heard Harper reply, "Very well, I still say that they may not be involved in Hecate or its operations directly. If they are however I expect you to handle their Illium branch... properly Mr. Stone."

I was certain NexGen was involved somehow because of their extensive research into an improved Medi-gel that could possibly topple the Sirta Foundation as the number one medical producer, and in this case probably make a huge profit out of it as well. I was also suspicious of their lack of new products focused on the market for alien species since it was up until a year ago solely focused on human centric products even though it had been founded in 2173 and continued to grow almost unchecked for nearly three years before the market competition was finally catching up. "Understood sir, I will be in the office by eight to give you a full brief before I call a meeting, unless something comes up anyway."

"Don't worry about it Mr. Stone, just make sure you have a clear head when that information comes through."

I couldn't help but laugh at that request before I replied, "Don't worry about it sir, I will make sure I will make sure I have a clear head, you just make sure that little import from our agricultural supplier, Sasha really enjoyed that steak I ordered."

I heard a nervous chuckle from the other side of the line, "You are absolutely crazy to have a varren you know."

"I prefer the term strange, not crazy, sir.", now I heard actual laughter, _"What the Hell got him in such a good mood?" I wondered._

"What has you in such a good mood today sir?"

"I just heard back from one of my sources in the Alliance Navy about your person of interest." Harper said very calmly and without any kind of change in his voice.

I paused for a moment "So you heard about the Commander then?" I asked with audible excitement, and Dr. Ulan was looking at me strangely due to what amounted as an emotional outburst for me.

"Yes I have, _Lieutenant_ Commander Jane Shepherd, she is currently on the track to promotion within the next year and a half if she continues with her current level of performance. She is currently trained to fight under the class designation of Sentinel as the Alliance military calls it, she is currently fitted with an L3 Biotic Amp according to her medical file, an impressive number of successful missions, she has been given quite the number of names by her fellow Alliance marines, The Iron Lady being the most famous of due to her exemplary performance on Elysium. Her level of training from the N7 program is beyond my expectations; about the only people with similar training that I know of Mr. Stone is Kai Leng, who as you know was an N7 graduate, and Elaina but that is due to Hecate's training regime as well as her various 'enhancements'. I could continue with this list but I am going to send you her file instead." I heard an audible pause for maybe a few seconds before he continued, "Oh yes and by the way, according to my contact in the Alliance she is being looked at for the Citadel Council's approval for the Spectres, however the final decision should be made sometime in the latter half of 2182 with submission and acceptance around December of 2182, or early in 2183 which I believe you told me should be on schedule."

I smiled slightly before replying, "That should be on schedule with what I know of." but not before I cursed politicians silently, I then paused for a moment as something in my mind stood out about a conversation Harper and I had about a week ago, "Out of curiosity have you heard anymore rumors come out of Batarian space lately?"

"No, just a few scattered reports about damaged ships and wreckage being salvaged by the various pirate groups in the Terminus Systems, why?"

"I have suspicions about what may be going on out there, but I need confirmation; see if you can get Aria to throw us a bone here, I hear she still has a soft spot for credits these days."

I could hear Harper reply with obvious amusement in his voice "You want me to call Aria? You do remember that she was more than just upset over what Kai Leng did to some of her contacts when you met him don't you?"

I then remembered the file I had read on Kai Leng's last mission to Omega, the single event that resulted in the fateful events of July 5, 2179 and all because of a bunch of idiotic fools who wouldn't hand over the lab equipment Cerberus wanted. "Honestly I am hoping enough credits will be there to make her memory… a little less sharp than it should be. Otherwise I can always go there in person and try to negotiate on my own behalf."

There was once again silence on the line as I told Harper I was going to be busy for a few minutes. I took the time to take a quick shower in one of the private stalls in the men's shower room that was graciously included in the gym's floor plan and I quickly got changed in my suit finishing up my wardrobe with my red cravat, the one piece of my wardrobe that I probably will never change because of that one horrible day.

"Are you still alive over there sir? I hope I haven't given you a heart attack from my request."

"No, I was just considering your proposal."

 _"Proposal, what does he mean by tha-..? Oh… never-mind he just accepted my offer to talk to the Pirate Queen of Omega. Damn."_ I thought grimly, "Alright, when do I leave?"

"As soon as possible, and considering that your project's first success will be leaving dry-dock at our Icarus Facility I would suggest catching a ship out there and taking the prototype out for a proper shakedown."

I stood there mentally going over the list of items on that ship in question, _The Fury_ named after the Furies in Greek mythology, _"Our version of the IES Stealth System, the Reduced Emissions Dispersal System for the engines reverse engineered from the Hecate frigate we had captured (the REDS is a complex system of vents, engine baffles, sensor absorbent materials and heat masking compounds designed to allow for limited stealth without the use of the IES Stealth System), our version of the Tantalus core, our in-house equivalent to Silaris Armor, oh yes, and the best part was the success of the Fire-lance Project; the first recorded laser capable of engaging ships at over a thousand kilometers without destroying itself or being rendered inoperable from damage caused by overheating, of course there was the added benefit the creation of Pulsed laser Batteries had, an advanced GARDIAN system capable of being fired in rapid barrages of a laser being shunted at set intervals to create a 'pulsed laser' capable of turning a frigate at 500 kilometers into a floating wreck, with only a single emitter capable of firing five beams in just under a second by itself, was the ultimate byproduct of the Fire-lance Project, then there were the added benefits from research into new forms of heat sink design, and new materials used to create advanced heat sinks for the project itself which could easily be modified to work for Mass Accelerator weapons ranging from spinal mounted cannons to rifles increasing the heat dispersion rate to just under 10 seconds instead of almost a full minute in the case of older models of the GARDIAN laser."_

I said to Harper over my Omni-tool with a wolfish grin, "I have been waiting to get the chance to be the first ranking Cerberus official on one of the _Fury_ class ships for over four months. Is the crew already prepped?"

"Yes the crew is ready, as is our 'special crewmember'."

I understood exactly what he meant by that, "So the Tactical Intelligence Matrix is installed already?", I then realized just what I was going to be calling that AI, _"Well damn-it-all, I am going to be stuck on a ship with yet ANOTHER T.I.M.."_

"Yes, against my better judgement however your description of how to treat an AI was intriguing so yes, however it is still shackled for now. I will not run the risk of letting it loose without making sure of its loyalty."

"I would like to point out that they act like rational beings but solely on logic up to a point, once they begin to 'mature' and incorporate emotional responses they will act the same as any organic being with the exception of not allowing that emotion to get in the way, in most cases that is."

"The minority of cases is what I am afraid of Mr. Stone. Regardless, get out to Omega and get that information if you have suspicions and consider it your first field assignment. I am also assigning Kai Leng to assist you due to his past experiences with Omega's political landscape and its population."

During this overly long conversation I had made my way down to the Computer Sciences Division with Dr. Ulan in-toe. I eventually made my way to a mess hall nearby and disconnected Harper after a brief conversation about Operative Rasa, grabbing a biscuit with a folded omelet on it for a bite on the go along with my usual cup of tea in a recyclable pressed foam cup, which apparently had caught the attention of Dr. Ulan who had asked what I was drinking, his face was filled with curiosity when I said, "A tea I have developed a habit of drinking while I was in England, the blend is called Earl Grey. It has been around for a long time if I recall correctly."

"Interesting, may have to try it later."

The Computer Sciences lab was literally filled with Salarian researchers who had extensive background checks run on them to make sure we weren't picking up spies from the STG by accident, and the number of human and Asari were surprisingly small however most of the humans, and Asari in this room had either an innate talent with computer programming and computer design, and the other thing the majority of them had was what they lacked in talent they made up for in determination and an intellect capable of making even some Salarians jealous. I made my way over to Dr. Ivana Hendrickson, a twenty year old graduate of the Grissom Academy's Ascension Program, and most importantly, resident genius and best decryption expert seconded only to our Intelligence Division's best and brightest.

"Dr. Hendrickson I hear you have a set of computer cores you have been examining from a certain ship in our custody?"

The very slim, blonde woman in a lab coat turned to face me revealing a face with freckles, steel grey eyes, a face usually frozen in a perpetual smile at even the smallest hint of a joke, and a visor I didn't recognize was perched over her right eye which appeared to be designed for displaying technical data in a dull orange format instead of the usual blue or purple of most visors.

"Yes, I have and I was a little surprised to find docking protocols, Hecate ID codes which have obviously been changed by now, flight recordings ranging from internal sensors, to external sensor data, a massive collection of surveillance data from almost a year ago dating about a week before the attack on this station, and," she paused briefly bringing up a file on a holographic suite in a corner of the room which was based off of the standard FTL comm system the Alliance used, showing a single text file of what appeared to be a set of predesignated orders with a time-lock according to the header on the filename. "a list of mission directives, preset objectives, navigational data, and communication records unfortunately in text only."

I was surprised at the sheer amount of data that she had been able to recover but this… it wasn't just a simple list of objectives this was a tactical analysis of Cronos Station's defense network, Cerberus patrol routes for almost all of the ships on duty during July of last year, the list just went on and on even detailing structural weaknesses in Cronos Station's outer defensive armor, this information could only have come from someone on the inside of Cerberus' command infrastructure.

"Good work Ms. Hendrickson, let me know if you find anything else." I stated before I brought my Omni-tool online to call Harper to let him know what she had found in the memory cores.

However before I could finish preparing to call Harper I heard her say, "Actually there is something else."

Her sudden reply had caught me off-guard making me turn slowly to face her before asking, "What is it Ms. Hendrickson?"

She said only one thing, "This."

She brought up a map detailing a region of space I had taken a quick look at on the way to the computer sciences division so I could become more acquainted with the layout of explored space in order to prepare for the eventual Reaper invasion, "The Arquilan Rift?"

"Yes and," she quickly input something on her data-pad and a series of red dots had been laid out over several areas in an unmapped section of the Arquilan Rift one of four major regions in the star cluster in question, "this is where the ship that these data cores were taken from had been sent out on patrol on several separate occasions. These coordinates are the locations where several ships had disappeared," I watched as several blue dots had been placed in the same areas as the original coordinates, "and these coordinates are where this ship has supposedly docked with either a ship or a station of some kind."

I watched as green dots were interposed over three separate locations where the largest concentrations of missing ships were placed as well as where the ship's patrol routes had originated from, and then it hit me. "You mean you found that ship's port of origin?"

"I believe I may have found a Hecate operated base, yes. If you meant if I had found their original launch point, I am afraid that data has been erased and overwritten at least eight times, so it is almost impossible to recover, however I can assign a team to look into it if you want Director."

I stood for a moment thinking it over before I said, "Save this data and send a copy to our intelligence division for verification, I want you and whomever you had assist you present in Briefing Room 12 in three hours Doctor." then I walked towards the door to the lab opening my Omni-tool to call Harper once again.

"Sir, you better clear your schedule three hours from now that lead may be a hot one, also I want you to contact Petrovsky and notify him of a potential target, I will contact Commodore Valurik and see if he knows anything about the Arquilan Cascade, and I want Briefing Room 12 prepped for an emergency briefing in exactly three hours."

"So I take it that Hecate has connections to the missing ships in the Arquilan Cluster?"

I moved to avoid running into an Asari who was biotically lifting a wall panel back into place with a Turian technician finishing up with placing their tools back into their toolbox and closed a fabrication app on their Omni-tool before securing the panel back into place. "Yes, apparently that frigate Petrovsky captured during the attack possibly had been part of a patrol group that had either destroyed or captured those missing ships. On a side note I want you to look at a data package I had Dr. Ivana Hendrickson send to our intelligence division.", I moved towards the elevator which I could take all the way up to Harper's office on Deck 12 all the while running through a list of readily available ships, personnel, and combat equipment that could be readied at a moment's notice.

The walk to the elevator took me about thirty seconds from where I had been while I was avoiding the people in the hallway, when I was finally able to reach Commodore Valurik I was greeted with the flanging voice of a retired Turian veteran of the First Contact War who I had personally recruited to fill a gap in the Cerberus fleet's naval command structure. His first assignment however was overseeing the refit of his command ship the _Excalibur_ , following in the footsteps of Harper's affection for using names found in the lore and history of ancient human cultures such as the Greeks and Romans, I decided to use the subjects of old human lore, such as the Arthurian legends (aka King Arthur) to use for the names of Cerberus operated dreadnoughts that were purchased from the governments of the Council races, such was the case of the Turian dreadnought we had purchased during November of last year. The refits the _Excalibur_ had been receiving were mostly structural and then there were the major overhauls. The spinal guns were removed and replaced in favor of replacing them with reinforced hull superstructure, a large hangar bay capable of holding eight fighter squadrons (five fighters each), a full complement of twenty Cerberus modified Kodiak shuttles (which were based off of the Hecate models we had salvaged from the attack on Chronos) that had been designed for stealth operations with the use of baffled engines and a hull coating based off of the Hecate Frigate as well. Then there were the "big guns" we used to replace the original spinal guns with spinal guns based off of designs we had "acquired" from the Asari Republic's original designs for the _Destiny Ascension's_ main gun which we had modified even further from the current version that was installed on the famous Asari flagship, which of course led to a few heat issues however we managed to work around that by installing a specialized cooling system derived directly from the Fire-Lance Project and the actual results of the guns in question have on targets of similar design and protection to the _Destiny Ascension_ was comparable to firing an old .454 caliber Elephant gun to open up an aluminum can, except this Elephant gun was actually a pair of mass accelerator cannons modified to fire a pair of rounds the size of a Volkswagen Beetle at forty percent of the speed of light, which didn't leave much left once the rounds hit. The hull was fitted with our version of Silaris Armor, Pulsed laser batteries were installed and linked directly into the GARDIAN system, and the biggest differences between the _Excalibur_ and another Turian dreadnought, not only did it have a primary kinetic barrier system, but also secondary and tertiary barrier systems as well as the reactor output to power them, and a pair of dreadnought _Titan_ model FTL drive cores which enabled the _Excalibur_ to move at an average flanking speed on par with a standard _Geneva_ class Alliance cruiser. Long story short Valurik's personal command ship was unofficially the only ship with the firepower and technological backing to stand up to almost any ship in the galaxy, at least until _Sovereign_ shows up.

My short trip in the elevator was filled by a conversation with Valurik about his knowledge of the Arquilan Cluster which was, surprisingly, accurate enough to validate some of the data recovered from the memory cores to indicate an old Turian Naval facility which was built as a resupply facility but was abandoned after several convoys were supposedly lost due to the Cluster's own hazards. He also confirmed several issues that may arise inside the cluster, especially when ships enter a region which was simply known as the Arquilan Void, a relatively small nebula that covers an entire planetary system in the Arquilan Cluster, it wasn't unknown for ships to get lost there, and there were reports of a single habitable system that contained planets capable of supporting both Levo-amino and Dextro-amino life, the odds of a system containing planets of Garden world capacity such as the planets in the report filed by the Hierarchy however were statistically impossible but there they were two Levo-amino based planets, and one Dextro-amino based world, and another planet with a Levo-amino ecosystem that was essentially twice the size of the Earth, with almost forty percent of its landmass being considered a tundra, then another twenty percent was essentially desert, ten percent was a massive jungle region covering a large chain of islands the size of New Zealand and a small continent approximately the size of Australia's northern coast. It was also the only planet in the entire region that had acceptable oxygen to nitrogen ratios that would allow easy colonization, the only problem with the planet itself was it was only discovered a few years prior to the First Contact War and was immediately slated for further exploration by the Turian Hierarchy after they had discovered signs of previously unknown ruins in a major desert region. There had been a single fleet dispatched to examine the site, but when they arrived there had not been a single building found at the site, there were signs of intelligent life however. A nomadic society of bipedal insectoids with some reptilian traits such as serpentine eyes, and the traits they had similar to an insect were a dense exoskeleton, a set of small but flexible mandibles that appeared to be able to be used to affect their normal speech (or as it was determined by an autopsy performed on the corpse of one of their species that had apparently died from unknown means almost two days prior to its discovery, each mandible was dense enough to actually cut quarter inch steel under what would have been considered a hard bite based off of an examination of the "jaw structure"), and surprisingly enough an ultra-dense muscle structure, the distinguishing trait of this species however was a full skeletal system in direct contrast to their insectoid traits. Their society apparently had an innate distrust of the unknown however as they shied away from any form of contact at the first sign of the Turian expedition by disappearing into the desert with no trace left of their passing, and even with the aid of aerospace fighters they were unable to track even an entire caravan. All in all the planet known as Kasek's Haven in reference to the captain of a Turian frigate that had run low on their supply of fresh water after their water recycling system had been taken offline after a maintenance check discovered a massive colony of microbes that had failed to be killed, leading to the discovery that the filtration system had a flaw in several of the main filters which could take up to several days to replace all of them, which amounted to three days, three days that the crew could not afford to go without water.

The conversation with Commodore Valurik continued for several minutes even going on to include a pair of old repair docks that had been abandoned, also due to the many navigational hazards of the Arquilan Cascade, which was by far the most dangerous region, it was a several planetary systems closely spaced so you could easily travel from one system to another in about four or five hours in FTL even with the slowest freighter available it would take about ten hours at most to travel between the outermost systems nonstop. The major hazards of this particular area were threefold, asteroid fields supposedly sitting completely untouched by any form of civilization (disregarding the occasional pirate ship or "phantom contact" which had led to several instances of panic amongst civilian explorers), several forms of defensive emplacements from the Turian forces stationed in the region including unmanned defenses such as mines, and even a few VI controlled GARDIAN batteries (all of which were supposedly disarmed, however with reported pirate activity in the Arquilan Cluster they are to be considered a hazard even when "destroyed"), and finally there was yet another massive nebula that stretched from the "Southern edge" of the Arquilan Void to the system known as Arquil where the Mass Relays for the entire region were located. The nebula itself was known for its fair share of missing ships, however the things that labeled it as dangerous were, the lack of operational NAV buoys, no FTL communication beyond whatever systems a ship was equipped with, massive electrical disturbances such as "lightning" which in reality were plasma discharges caused from reactions in pockets of unstable gases of unknown origin and composition, sensors were to be considered unreliable at best due to not only the plasma discharges but also a natural "storm" of similar activity known as _The Maelstrom of Guriya_ which was named for the wreckage of a civilian owned Asari cruiser that was refitted as an exploration ship that was declared lost with all hands, including a sizeable Salarian complement of one hundred scientists and engineers listed amongst the crew, almost eight years after the War. It was considered to be foolish to head into the area without anything less than a full fleet with the intention of establishing lines of supply, and communication for the eventual rush of colonists to the area in the event that such things could be established and the region mapped thoroughly.

I hurriedly walked to the briefing room collecting a small entourage consisting of Dr. Hendrickson, Dr. Ulan, several other humans in uniform (four in total) with the rank of Lieutenant and one Captain and insignias indicating they were from Cerberus' main ground assault forces, and finally a female Turian, in a uniform used by Cerberus' naval branch, that I didn't recognize at least until I saw the name on their uniform, "Captain Eronia it is a pleasure to meet you in person, I trust that the _Fury_ hasn't given you much trouble during testing?"

Captain Eronia turned to look at me with a stoic expression with grey eyes that looked tired, a pair of faint scars from shrapnel crossed her face from her left brow-plate to the bottom of her jaw's right side, and the same blue facial markings as Garrus Vakarian, indicating she was from Palaven itself.

"Director.", she nodded in a slow and deliberate manner, the fatigue she was suffering from was due to the over dedicated professionalism she had acquired in the Turian navy, having served up until the loss of her frigate after a pirate raid on a facility owned and operated by the manufacturing firm called Elanus Risk Control, even though she successfully repelled the pirate group her ship was destroyed after it had sustained catastrophic damage to its engines and reactor forcing the crew to abandon the frigate. Harper, Valurik, and I had read the after action report she had submitted to the Turian navy and I felt there was nothing she could have done differently, although Valurik thought there were a few events that could have been avoided even though they would not have affected the outcome in the slightest. As was expected the Turian navy was less than pleased with the loss of her frigate and had ordered a full inquiry which led her to an early retirement and honorable discharge with the provision that she would never join the navy again except in times of war, however if I had not pulled a few strings through our agents in the Hierarchy the inquiry probably would have resulted in several charges of dereliction of duty from one of the more… over-zealous admirals on the board of inquiry appointed to the investigation. It had taken awhile to locate her after her retirement in order for us to offer her a position, which she initially refused however we had left her the means to contact us via a one use extranet address that would allow her to contact an operative of ours on Palaven. She had waited almost a month before she had contacted us and after a short discussion regarding what we expect from our personnel and a quick overview of her assignment she was promptly brought to Minuteman Station, after a full-body scan to prevent listening devices from making their way into our organization or more importantly onto a ship equipped with an FTL comm that she would be receiving her orders, for her initial assignment as captain of a patrol vessel in the Terminus Systems tasked with mainly stopping Batarian backed slavers and pirates from raiding both Council controlled space, and the nearby Systems Alliance held regions in the Attican Traverse. I had also not met her personally during her employment with Cerberus, until today that is.

I returned the nod with one of my own before asking, "Captain, what do you think of your new assignment?"

Captain Eronia straightened herself and the fatigued look she was sporting seemed to evaporate instantly before she replied, "The _Fury_ is far more challenging to command than my previous ship however it is a welcome challenge."

I furrowed my eyebrows in response to her statement, "What do you mean by that exactly captain?"

She gave a tired but amused sigh before she said, "Well it is designed with stealth in mind, however its armaments are akin to what you would expect in an Salarian STG lab and not actually a fully functional warship that is, well," she turned to look out the window to observe the nearby docking arm that was attached to a 200 meter long frigate that resembled a miniaturized version of a Class II cruiser (which as it turns out was the type of cruiser Aria had "acquired" in Mass Effect 3's Omega DLC) that instead of featuring a spinal mass accelerator cannon it held an eight meter wide lens made from an artificial compound similar to the synthetic sapphire found in the Atlas Mech's armored canopy, "exceptionally over-done."

I looked at Captain Eronia with nothing but pure amusement beginning to make its way into my voice, "Overdone? I have never thought of it like that Captain, I merely wanted a frigate," indicating the _Fury_ with my right thumb being jabbed in its direction over the same shoulder, "that could fight its way out of Hell itself if it was caught finding out what kind of after-shave the Devil wore."

"That was what I was afraid of Director."

I couldn't help but laugh at that one before I finally said, "Come on, the briefing is starting soon."

* * *

Third Person/Narrator's POV

As Ian, and the various personnel behind him filtered into the large, and dark room motion sensors detected their arrival and lights began to flicker to life as Haptic Interfaces lining a massive rectangular table made from a white backed pane of half-inch thick glass with a very familiar yellow symbol floating above the center beneath a meter wide circular holographic projector. Office chairs fit for the wealthiest of industrialists lined the sides of the eight meter long, three meter wide table until they were moved by a crowd of almost twenty people from the major races of the galaxy, nine Humans, six Asari, four Turians, and one Salarian. The lone Salarian Dr. Ulan sat next to Dr. Ivana Hendrickson discussing the contents of a pair of data-pads, Harper sat at the far end of the table with Kai Leng standing about a foot behind his right shoulder eyeing the occupants of one of the most secure rooms on Cronos Station, and at the opposite end Ian opens his Omni-tool and begins the briefing that will decide the fates of not only Cerberus and the galaxy, but also the fate of a new face just awakening to this new world.


	2. Into the Storm

Mass Effect: Another Illusive Man – Into the Storm

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own the Mass Effect series or its affiliated products, Bioware and its affiliates, or any other series'/copyrighted item I may mention.

**Author's note: I would like to apologize profusely because I had completely forgotten about this story, and I am absolutely horrified at the fact that I did so in the first place. Without further commentary I would like to give you a chapter made specifically as a long overdue obligation that must be fulfilled.**

"Talking"- normal conversation will not have any changes

" _Talking_ "-characters thinking to themselves OR are mentally conversing (telepathy, facial expressions, etc.) will be in Italic in normal speech format, written words will also be in bold

"SPOILER ALERT" - I may be creating a possible crossover between the story line I am writing, and Warhammer 40k that will take place either during or after the events of Mass Effect (2 or 3), that may evolve into more than that, but I honestly just thought I would mention this so I can get your opinions/requests noted either by private messages if you are able to do so. (In the event that I do decide upon adding the crossover I will be sure to include a hint either in chapter 3 or an upcoming chapter, possibly even during the events of Mass Effect for that matter) - "SPOILER ALERT"

* * *

Narrator's POV (Continued from Chapter 1)

The briefing room was dimly lit by the ceiling mounted lights as everyone took their seats, and there was little surprise as several humans took seats opposite of the non-human personnel, however this trend was broken by Ian who took a seat at the end of the table closest to Captain Eronia and a few of the other Cerberus officers by taking seats close to them, and a number of other alien officers including the Salarian engineer Dr. Ulan, and one of the Asari drew the eyes of several Human officers since she was wearing the standard Cerberus BDU with the obvious indicators of being a Biotics combat expert, the captain's bars, but the subtle differences between her uniform and their own gave her away as being part of Cerberus' ground forces and a small patch just below her shoulders on her upper arms said " _Fury_ " in a bold Italic print giving away her assignment as a Cerberus marine aboard the galaxy's only active stealth frigate. A pair of holographic projectors displayed the images of General Petrovsky and Commodore Valurik in a bright electric blue that did nothing to dispel their air of authority and nearly stoic expressions.

General Petrovsky appeared as he did in Mass Effect 3's Omega DLC but with a slightly younger appearance, and Commodore Valurik gave off the impression of a Turian who hadn't seen much combat despite having been in eleven minor military campaigns that were mostly directed against pirates and the infamous Relay 314 Incident and he appeared in a set of light combat armor in a crisp white with the Cerberus emblem displayed prominently on the shoulders. There were no indications of rank other than a few stripes on the pauldrons along with simple decorations on the lower arms and the cap he held beneath one arm, and his armor gave away the fact that its wearer had seen more than his fair share of war by displaying prominently on the chest plate no less than a dozen military campaign ribbons.

Overall the meeting was moving along as one would expect once the reason for the meeting was stated as being about the information found on _The Revenant_ along with the reason why they were brought to the briefing room, for General Oleg Petrovsky the reason was the simple order to ready his ground forces for deployment on short notice within the coming week, for Commodore Valurik he was to organize a contingent of Cerberus' naval assets into the so-called "Cerberus First Fleet" and prepare them for rapid deployment in the event that the _Fury_ wasn't going to be enough and a standing order for the full refit of nearly twenty additional ships of varying size to form a standing reserve fleet under his command, and Kai Leng was there because he would undoubtedly be assigned to the upcoming operation as the senior field operative, but Ian Stone had made his own intentions clear. Ian was going to lead the scouting mission personally from the moment the _Fury_ exited N-space and began the operation all the way to the moment they docked after it was completed. The mission logistics were questioned and were addressed, the only real concerns were fuel, and supplies for the crew, the fuel was addressed with a pre-arranged drop-off outside of the patrol routes the Turian navy used with several freighters owned by several captains who had on several occasions worked for Cerberus and its interests quickly, efficiently, and secretly, for a reasonable fee of course, and supplies could be mitigated to a point but the usage of supplies could be rationed, and the loss of supplies to daily use could be mitigated with those same fuel suppliers as well as whatever could be secured during the operation. The only real questions left in everyone's mind at the end of the meeting were simple. Could Cerberus handle the loss of what amounted to a new figurehead for the organization, and what would happen if first contact with a new space-faring race was established and in so doing, repeated the Rachni War or even another Relay 314 Incident due to the mostly unknown environs in the Arquilan Cluster.

Almost four hours later the briefing room emptied out after the eventual deployment of the _Fury_ was to occur after the information they had could be verified by Cerberus' intelligence branch, save for a small and unexpected group of individuals everyone left the room, Captain Eronia, who was in a conversation with the Asari marine captain from her ship. Harper and Kai Leng, both of whom were in a hushed conversation with Ian Stone and Commodore Valurik. As their own conversations came to a close they slowly filed out of the briefing room, Captain Eronia to prepare her ship to finish its shakedown cruise of the N-space drive and the marine captain followed her through the door but made a brief farewell to Captain Eronia before proceeding down the hallway in the opposite direction, but as for Ian Stone, Kai Leng, Harper, and Commodore Valurik details were being discussed as Kai Leng took position outside of the briefing room's entrance and leaned against the wall casually, and any of the personnel in the hallway seemed to scurry away from him as if sensing the predator in their midst.

"Commodore, what exactly do you know about the current state of the fuel depots that the Hierarchy had deployed in the region of the Maelstrom?", Harper asked in his usual neutral manner, but it was tinged with enough curiosity to be evident.

"I personally have no definite knowledge of their current state, but I do know that the GARDIAN defense platforms were all dismantled and by that I mean the lasers themselves are no longer there but the hulls themselves are in still in place, and aside from that I know that any fuel depots inside of the Arquilan Rift may have been left with small caches of fuel in the event that the Hierarchy ever decided to attempt mapping the Arquilan Cluster, but only one depot is inside of the Maelstrom and can be defined as too dangerous to retrieve without fully mapping the area once again...", he paused for a moment before speaking again, this time directly addressing Ian.

If I may Sir, I have a personal request, I feel that I need to make sure you understand that this has to deal with my family but only in part.", the last part was mentioned cautiously.

"Go ahead Valurik." Ian stated with a simple nod.

Commodore Valurik cleared his throat before he continued, "Director Stone, it's about something my granddaughter had brought to my attention just this morning in a message I received from her on my extranet account..." again he paused before taking a breath.

"A friend of hers from the private school she attends on the Citadel Presidium is being followed by several suspicious individuals, all human and-"

Harper interrupted, "Why do you feel you need to bring this to our attention?"

"I am getting to that Sir, and I can assure you that it is important."

"Very well, continue."

"My granddaughter had mentioned that her friend, Sakura Kanno, has had a bit of a turbulent past, the most recent of which was being involved in an air car collision in the Presidium just last year but since then she has been doing some... strange... things."

Ian raised an eyebrow before asking in reply, "What do you mean by 'strange'?"

"My granddaughter had told me about her friend's uncanny ability to finish other people's sentences, knowing about unscheduled tests in classes, knowing who is about to enter a room, and to be honest the list keeps going on, but it all made me think about the intelligence files we have on Hecate Warlocks..."

"So you think that your granddaughter's friend might be worth taking a look into, just to make sure that it isn't the Hecate organization looking for another person to press into service as a Warlock?"

Commodore Valurik gave a subtle nod before replying, "I believe that it is something that is not necessarily something we should involve ourselves in, but it could still prove beneficial if we could get a look at her biometrics if she is even remotely similar to a so-called 'Warlock', but I have been told she isn't a Biotic and so far it is only just what I mentioned about her."

Ian closed his eyes for a moment before nodding and curling a corner of his mouth into a slight grin, "I think Captain Eronia wouldn't mind heading toward the Citadel as long as we make the arrangements to secure landing permission of course, and I believe I have some vacation time yet, so a couple of days spent enjoying the view of the Presidium wouldn't be much of a problem, that and I am sure the _Fury_ still has a few members of the crew that could use a little shore leave."

Commodore Valurik looked mildly surprised as he answered with a look of relief, "Thank you Sir, I was not expecting you to take this seriously, but I am glad to see that I was wrong."

Ian nodded once before saying, "I think it would be wise to let your granddaughter know that a friend of yours will be arriving to look into her friends situation, and to make sure that C-Sec is aware of her friend's situation."

"They actually had on several occasions, but C-Sec always arrived and found no trace of the people following her."

"I see, then please ensure that her friend isn't going to be doing anything alone until after I have made sure that this is resolved."

Another nod accompanied Valurik's reply, "I'll make sure to pass it on as soon as we are done here then. Is there anything else you want me to pass along?"

"I wouldn't mind knowing more about Miss Kanno, and I need to make sure she knows they did the right thing by contacting C-Sec first. Is there anything else you need?"

"No Sir, and I need to ensure that my preparations are completed as soon as possible, good luck sir."

"Good luck Valurik, and Valurik, my name is Ian, not Sir."

Ian paused for a moment after turning to talk to Harper before turning back to Commodore Valurik, "I'm curious, do you know who handled their call at C-Sec?"

"I don't remember their last name, but I think their first name was Garrus or something... why?"

Ian face palmed in a single fluid movement and let out an annoyed groan before mumbling, "Just peachy..."

Harper asked, "Is something wrong Mr. Stone?"

And in response Ian let out a very low growl, "It's a really long story that I would rather talk about later..."

* * *

Ian's POV

 _"It's an hour after the end of that private conversation I spoke with Valurik about that problem his granddaughter's friend is having, and Harper now knows about Garrus... and I'll lay ten to one odds he is going to try recruiting him..."_ I thought bitterly, that would be the last thing I need right now, granted I admire the Hell out of Garrus because he is a certifiable badass when it comes to taking down the bad guys, but I really don't need to worry about causing the timeline to spiral out of control further than what it is already.

"Mr. Stone?" With the mention of my name I immediately snapped my attention back to Harper, specifically my view of Harper sitting in his chair since I was standing near the half-meter thick window looking out at the crimson star Cronos Station was orbiting.

"Sorry Harper, I was just thinking about how things are starting to look far different than what I was hoping to be working with."

I watched as Harper's eyes narrowed as he said, "I see...", just before he took a drink from his bourbon filled glass.

"If I may ask Mr. Stone... have you heard from Oracle at all since last year?"

I turned to face him, "No I haven't..."

I looked at Harper as he stared at me, I couldn't tell if he was just studying my response to tell if I was lying, or if he was just wondering how many secrets I was keeping from him about the potential future the galaxy was going to get hit with, but I knew he was about to prod me with more questions regardless just as I knew that eventually something is going to come up to make me divulge more information, either by his doing or something else.

I watched Harper in silence as he sat staring at me with a half full glass of bourbon sitting next to him on the small table to his right.

"Why do you want to lead the reconnaissance operation in the Arquilan Cluster?"

"I don't know."

Harper stared at me in silence for a moment before he spoke again, "Mr. Stone... there is always a reason to want to do something, what I want to know however, is whether or not you can think of a reason why you want to go."

"Why are you so insistent on getting an answer? I really don't know why, it just seems like a good idea."

Again, I looked at him as he just sat there in silence before he spoke again, "Mr. Stone, I like to think that I understand the motivations of the people I employ and those few people that circumstances make into valuable assets and allies, and right now I think you need to know something to see why I am asking you about your motivations."

"Like what?"

Harper drained the glass of bourbon in one go before he answered my question, as he set the glass down on the table next to him he finally spoke, each word was hesitantly spoken and seemed to be carefully chosen.

"What would you think if I told you that I, somehow, may be responsible for your being here?"

I stared at Harper for a moment before I gave a loud chuckle that became barely controlled laughter that hurt my gut so much I was nearly doubled over in pain with both of my arms across my stomach.

"I would think you have had far too much to drink, far too early in the day Harper..." I said, as my laughter was finally starting to subside and I used the back of one of my gloves to wipe off the tears that had formed in the corners of my eyes, but I looked over at Harper and he wasn't laughing, in fact he was staring at me like I was a complete lunatic.

"...You're not joking are you?"

In response Harper merely shook his head from side to side very slowly as I slowly straightened my posture.

"Why do you think you might be responsible?" I closed my eyes briefly as a sudden thought hit me.

"It's the Prothean tech you had Miranda reverse engineer... isn't it?"

"When you were taken aboard the transport Kai Leng was using on Omega, you and your friend miss Whitworth were given full bio scans after you were seen showing signs of radiation poisoning, radiation poisoning that was caused by a very unique form of irradiated particle that isn't found in nature, at least outside of Null Space."

I stood there looking at him before I gave a slight snort of annoyance, "Harper, you had her work on that technology well outside of Omega's territory, let alone the Terminus Systems, and I don't recall being literally dragged into anything by Cerberus personnel."

Harper paused for a moment before he grabbed a data pad off of the table and tossed it toward me, and despite my usual inability to catch things due to a slight issue I have with never having a data pad thrown at me before, I managed to catch it safely and turned it on. I was more than confused by everything that was on the screen because I really didn't understand the science behind Null Space, let alone how the Protheans managed to get a working FTL system designed to use it.

"What does all of this mean?"

Harper poured himself another glass of bourbon as he replied, "It is a report from an investigation team I had ordered to investigate the rear half of a twenty-first century car that mysteriously appeared in one of Omega's commercial sectors, and they found a place where the laws of physics were more... flexible... than the rest of the galaxy, and I had Miranda perform some tests where she experimented with the prototype Null Space drive system in another site with similar properties, and she found yet another location where the laws of physics began to break down."

I was no longer interested in what he had said about how I may have gotten here, now I was interested in what could happen if we used the Null Space drive again.

"Do you mean that the drive system created them?"

"Miranda doesn't believe so, but its use did have a side effect, and currently we have a large crystal made from an unknown material sitting in a lab on Minuteman station and to be honest Mr. Stone, its properties are quite intriguing."

"How is a lump of rock intriguing to you Harper?"

"According to Miranda, it is giving off copious amounts of energy, and appears to weaken the laws of physics in subtle ways, and to an extent allows the creation of the effects needed to imitate a Null Space Drive's functions."

"So, basically, we have a giant rock sitting in a lab that is telling us that the laws of physics are bullshit, and Miranda is having a field day trying to figure out what makes it tick?"

I watched as Harper pinched the ridge of his nose with one hand like he was stressed as he replied, "That is a crude way of understanding it, but it is correct nonetheless."

"Are we able to figure out how I may have ended up here then?"

"Miranda is working on it on her spare time, but we have a pretty good idea."

"Good, but I'm not leaving."

Harper looked at me in what appeared to be mild surprise and curiosity, "Who said you were leaving?"

"Sorry, I figured you were telling me all of that so I would ask if I could go home or not, but like I said, I'm not leaving, there is too much at stake here."

I paused for a moment, sighing before I continued, "That and I would never forgive myself for leaving billions of people, no matter their species, to die if I could do something to save even a fraction of them."

I stood in silence after I finished what I had to say, and it remained silent for nearly ten minutes before I said farewell and headed down to the firing range to meet up with Elaina once again.

* * *

Ian's POV, 8:13 PM

Images played over and over in my head from today as I sat on the edge of my bed, and I recalled each and every one in perfect detail, the meeting with Mr. Brennan at the convention in London, the drive toward York that led me to Omega of all places and right into Cerberus' waiting arms, getting shot at repeatedly throughout what was essentially my worst nightmare which ended in my losing Sherry, and then all of what transpired after that day to lead me here... awake and unable to calm down until I finally laid down and felt the weight of Sasha hopping onto the foot end of my bed as I closed my eyes for a brief moment before looking at the alarm clock on my nightstand to see in bold, bright orange numbers 8:15 PM, and then finally closed my eyes again trying to calm down.

I laid there for a few minutes before opening my eyes and looking at the clock for what seemed like the hundredth time, 11:38 PM.

 _"Why the Hell can't I fall asleep?"_

It was a question that I couldn't answer yet again as I was lying on my bed, with Sasha lying across my feet soundly making a loud rumbling noise similar to a growl that I now knew to be a Varren's equivalent to snoring, and personally I was glad that at least she was able to sleep, although it would be a lot better if I was also asleep.

I looked at the clock on my nightstand and quietly sighed as I saw the dull orange numbers switch from 11:38 PM, to 11:39 PM, and I felt like I was slowly losing my mind. Today I had found out that my being here might have been the byproduct of Project Emerald Flame, Harper's attempt to break humanity's reliance on the Mass Relay network, and most likely make an enormous profit out of it. I was also troubled by the fact that I didn't know why I wanted to go on the reconnaissance mission at all. I had been quite aware of my own personal faults, my occasionally eccentric habits, and sometimes lack of empathy to just name a couple of them, but what troubled me was that I always had a reason of some kind.

I was letting my thoughts run rampant in my head in a futile attempt to make my mind exhaust itself, but suddenly I heard something in the hallway. It was barely audible, but it sounded like the sound of a coin dropping onto a concrete floor, and with that I very carefully extracted my feet from underneath Sasha's sleeping reptilian form and grabbed the Phalanx pistol I had next to my alarm clock and with a single twitch of my finger to press the button to unfold the handgun, I raised it to eye level and opened the door to the rest of my quarters. I looked into the bathroom with its open door and the dim light given off by a small wall mounted light fixture on its far wall revealing nothing but an open shower, the sink and the simple metal countertop and several drawers and cabinets below it, and obviously the toilet, but nothing else aside from towels. I looked down the hallway toward the living room and didn't see anything out of place or unusual since I always left a lamp on its lowest setting just in case I had a night where I couldn't fall asleep, and it didn't take more than a moment to silently move into the living room itself and check my desk and make sure my safe was still closed, but that left just the kitchen to check since the closet in the living room always made a loud squeaking noise when its door opened, and that noise could probably wake the dead.

I silently moved to the kitchen door and swung my Phalanx in through the door before I entered, sweeping from corner to corner with the handgun as I surveyed the last room in my quarters and to my surprise I saw that nothing was out of place. I let out a sigh as I began to make my way back to my bedroom when I felt my foot kick something across the kitchen floor giving off a light rattling noise. When I picked up the object I had accidently kicked across the threshold into the living room I found myself looking at an expended power cell that I had misplaced just the other day.

"I'm starting to lose it..." I said under by breath as I felt a crooked grin creep onto my face.

That was when I heard something make a loud clanking noise behind me along with a mechanized hiss like the sound of the door to my quarters opening and then I felt a hand place itself on my shoulder just as I heard a voice that I had heard so long ago, and had been reminded of in the dream I had earlier today.

"I see you have kept the Key safe, for now..."

I listened to that familiar feminine voice and chuckled, "It isn't like you gave me many options Oracle, but I do wonder why you have chosen to appear here physically, not to mention how you have actually gotten here."

"Not all of the physical reality can be explained as simple distance and obstacles. Sometimes there are ways to circumvent such things, just like the Protheans attempted to so long ago..."

I began to turn toward Oracle but when I turned to look behind me all I saw was an empty room and the hand I had felt on my shoulder had disappeared, "Oracle, are you still here?"

This time I heard Oracle speak from beside my left ear, "Of course I am, but not all things are as they appear."

I looked to my left to see nothing but the doorway to the kitchen, and then I looked around the living room again, "Where are you?"

"I am... both in the lab you are having your scientists study me in, here in your quarters, and... far away.", as Oracle said this I immediately thought of the Key.

"The Key, and the Obelisk are part of you aren't they?"

I heard a sound that reminded me of the hissing sound of a snake mixed with an inhuman chuckle, "Despite being primitive by the standards of my ancestors you are quite the intriguing individual... perhaps the forces of fate have chosen correctly for once."

"What do you mean by that?"

I felt a pressure build behind my eyes as Oracle responded.

"There are things among the ruins of times long past that you should not question, and one of them... will be revealed in time, if I so wish to do so. For now Ian, there is a place that you must go, do not ask why, but you do need to know that if you don't do so... the very fate of this galaxy could fade into little more than a bleak and barren wasteland long before the Dark Tide comes to claim their bloody harvest."

I wondered just how I was supposed to trust Oracle just like I had known her as long as I had Sherry, but that was when I heard the rest of what they were saying.

"If you choose not to pursue this path, then all will be as ash while the enemy you have never known about until so recently launches a crusade that will leave an ocean of blood in its wake, and the people around you that you have so willingly placed your faith in are the only thing between your new enemy, and those you seek to protect from the shadows. So tell me..."

This time I turned to face where Oracle's voice was coming from, which was currently behind me and I was shocked to see a tall figure in a dark robe with their head covered by a hood that hid Oracle's features in darkness that prevented all light from revealing their face, save for six eyes that glowed a deep amber light that immediately reminded me of the cybernetic eyes that Harper had save for the pupils that looked like slits.

"...Will you fight them, no matter who or what their weapons, tools, or even ships are wielded by? No matter the odds or personal cost they may cause you?"

I stood there in silence as the six eyes narrowed at me from under the hood they inhabited before I finally replied after what felt like an eternity of silent contemplation, "I will."

"That is not the answer I seek, tell me exactly what you mean Ian."

I took a deep breath before repeating myself with a more 'satisfactory' answer, "I will fight them no matter what happens to myself, anything, or anyone that I may care about. Is that what you want to hear Oracle?"

I watched as the hood dipped slightly before completing a nod before I heard them speak again, "Yes... sadly more than what I wished to hear, for I pray that you are willing to stand by that oath child. I need you to proceed to a world that the Council races have named Kasek's Haven, there is an item that you must secure there before your enemies do, for if they succeed in doing so before you can... their blood drenched dream can become reality."

"What am I looking for, and where?"

"Just look to the shattered moon's frozen ocean and you will find what you need to. Now then... I must attend to another matter, that I have promised an old acquaintance, that I would take care of for them so long ago..."

I started to open my mouth to ask what I should do with what I was supposed to acquire and what it actually was, but I watched as Oracle took a step backward and the air behind them started to bend and twist like the haze from heat before what I could only describe as a hole in reality opened up revealing a black void that was bordered by a sickly yellow glow that radiated from its edges and electricity arced around it and into Oracle as they simply vanished into the black void as it dissipated. When Oracle had completely passed into the pitch black 'gateway', it simply faded into a dark, wispy cloud that slowly faded away revealing naught but the window behind where it had been.

"Well, that was... a surprise..."

I waited for a moment looking around my quarters again making sure there wasn't another surprise waiting for me as I worked my way back to my bedroom before collapsing on my bed, slapping the Phalanx onto the nightstand as I did so.

"I'm never going to fall asleep at this rate am I...?"

A quick look at the alarm clock told me that it was 12:05 AM, and with a groan I closed my eyes and let out a sigh, that was the last thing I remembered until I heard the blaring sound of my alarm clock going off at 6 AM.

* * *

9:18 AM, June 2nd, 2080

I watched Harper as he sat in his chair, while he was thinking over everything I had just told him about last night's events.

"So you are going there, correct?"

I shrugged as I finished the breakfast I had brought with me into Harper's office and gave him a look that said exactly what I thought.

"I see, so you are going there just because you feel you don't have a choice then. What do you plan on doing if whatever you are supposed to retrieve is in enemy hands?"

I placed the fork down on the plate as I finished the cup of tea I had sitting on my desk, "I plan on ensuring that they can't have it, and if it happens to be inside of a compound, ship, or station I am quite confident that we could just overload the reactor, or for that matter we jettison the object into space to retrieve it at a later date."

Harper sat in his chair as he lit a cigarette, taking a short drag before sighing in a tired manner.

"What's wrong Harper, tired?"

Harper shook his head in reply before speaking, "No Mr. Stone, I'm not tired. I just remember when all I had to worry about was figuring out what the next order to give was, or what was next on the agenda, but now I have to worry about an entire galaxy's fate. I miss the days where I only had to worry about Humanity and this organization."

"I see...", I didn't continue pressing the matter, but instead let a steady silence creep into the office as I thought of what I was going to say next, if I said anything.

"What do you think Oracle's intentions are Mr. Stone?"

"Oracle's intentions concerning what exactly?"

"Whatever it is she is having you retrieve, because I honestly doubt that there isn't an ulterior motive behind having you head to Kasek's Haven, especially where it coincidently happens to be in the sights of the Hecate Organization's own leadership according to Oracle's vague hints."

I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair as I replied, "I'll make a decision based on the circumstances and what I am aware of, but obviously it is up to us to come up with the best outcome."

I listened to Harper sigh and I could smell a fresh cloud of cigarette smoke drift in my direction as I opened my eyes.

"So you want to make decisions when the time comes for them then?", Harper asked with his eyes narrowed at the holographic display to his right.

"I guess so Harper, but I do have to wonder what Oracle meant by a bloody crusade.", it suddenly occurred to me that we were in fact talking about an organization that was profoundly worse than Cerberus had been with its previous pro-human agenda and outlook.

"Harper, do you think the Hecate Organization has the resources to actually field a fleet capable of waging an actual war?"

Harper turned away from the holographic display to look at me blankly before he stated, "I don't know what kind of resources they have, but I would assume they have as many resources as we do, or at the very least they have the ability to acquire more in a short period of time."

Sitting there talking to Harper about anything was not exactly high on my list of preferred activities, watching Anime, spending time with friends, and making sure Sasha didn't eat my furniture (or my shoes) were my more preferred options, but I was here because he wanted me here before I went on the search for the Hecate Organization's assets in the Arquilan Cluster. So in spite of his normally business centric attitude he was here essentially skirting around something, that much I could tell from his interest in the holographic display he had been constantly turning back to the entire time I was here in our office.

"Harper, why did you want me here instead of prepping for the _Fury's_ departure?"

I watched in silence as Harper tapped the ashes from his cigarette into the ash tray next to his chair, and he took another drag from it before replying.

"I received a message from one of our operatives in the Turian Hierarchy this morning, apparently a Turian patrol was for lack of a better term, butchered, and the black boxes were too badly damaged to be of any use, the only thing that was able to be salvaged were the wrecks of both light cruisers and the five frigates that were assigned as escorts."

I was more than a little surprised to hear that not one, but seven ships, had been destroyed. What made that even worse was the fact that they were a Turian patrol fleet, that usually meant that the ships in that patrol were armed to the teeth and reasonably armored with a strong emphasis on speed and mobility. Turian frigate captains had a habit of flying in loose formations designed for optimum coverage for their GARDIAN laser defense systems, and to ensure they couldn't be hit at the same time without multiple ships firing from the aggressors in question. Running over the math in my head however, between what little I knew of naval combat in space, and the technology behind it, I guessed that whatever had destroyed them had to be well into the overall tonnage of at least a pair of cruisers backed up by at the very least the same number of frigates to engage their counterparts and win, but even then they had to have the advantage of surprise and getting the first shot in.

"I don't suppose they included any information about the fleet that attacked the patrol?"

"They did, but that is where you are wrong Mr. Stone, it wasn't a fleet of ships."

"Then what was it?"

I watched as Harper brought up an image on the holographic display and increased its size before expanding it into a partially rendered three dimensional image of a black ship that only resembled an Alliance dreadnought or maybe a super-heavy cruiser like the Beijing class, of course... the silver plating and what looked like either a Thanix hydrodynamic mass accelerator cannon or possibly a Collector particle beam shattered what illusions of an Alliance black op taking place as its weapon was slicing through the bow of a Turian frigate, leaving a glowing trail from where it initially impacted near its engines before passing all the way down the length of the hull to its present location just a few meters shy of the bow plating's slightly tapered point.

"What the Hell is that?"

Harper took a moment to take a final drag from his cigarette before snuffing it out in the ash tray as he answered, "This is the only thing the Turians managed to pull from the data core of the frigate that attempted to withdraw after transmitting a distress call. Aside from that I would guess that this is not an Alliance dreadnought, but I have forwarded all of the data that our operative included from impact analysis of the armor taken from one of the destroyed cruisers, and to be honest... none of our scientists or engineers have any idea what has the ability to do that to ablative armor."

"So it looks like the Hecate Organization has a new toy running combat trials then. I don't suppose you have any idea what that thing is armed with?"

"No, aside from what it has demonstrated during the engagement with the Turian patrol, I would have to say that it would be wise to expect the worst and that it would be prudent to be ready to run should you see it."

With that comment from Harper said I collected the now empty plate and coffee cup that once contained black tea and stood, taking a long hard look at the image that was floating about a meter and a half above the floor and I said, "Well then, I suppose I had best make sure that Captain Eronia is made aware of this new development."

I began to walk toward the door when I heard Harper clear his throat and ask something I hadn't expected him to, "Do you want to know about Ms. Kanno? I had taken the liberty of looking into her background after the Commodore had mentioned her."

"What is so curious about her that you would be looking into her background Harper?", I asked as I raised an eyebrow, only bothering to glance over my shoulder in his general direction instead of turning to face hi m.

"Well, for instance, were you aware that she is the only surviving member of her family aside from her mother's ailing sister, and that she has been employed as a technical support specialist in the lower sections of the Citadel's Presidium for nearly a year in order to pay for her parents' home on the Silver Sun Strip?"

Now that had definitely caught my attention, "Where on the Strip exactly?"

"Thirteen, fifty seven, Arlioch quarter. You're thinking about paying them a visit directly then?"

"No, but it would help to know where to find Ms. Kanno if I have to. So that leaves me with one question, why does she pique the interest of anyone? From what I have seen she is passing her school courses, barely, and doesn't have any sort of extra-curricular activities other than her job."

"I see I wasn't the only one that looked into her background."

I turned to look at Harper properly and scoffed, "What, did you expect me to run off to the Citadel without bothering to find out if she may have had a run-in with someone or something that might want to collect a debt from her? I'm not that daft Harper...", as I said this I gave Harper a look of feigned disgust.

I was however surprised to hear Harper chuckle and watched him wave me off as he said, "Smartass, get moving before I push you out of my office."

I gave a mock salute with the empty coffee cup in my hand, and stepped backward through the door, just narrowly missing Oleena on my way out as she was heading into Harper's (and my) office with a data pad in one hand, and in response I thought I heard a muffled "Damn it, watch where you're going dumbass!"

I knew I saw the look of horror on her face when she realized who she was talking to, and I replied the best way I knew how, and that was with a faint smile and rather rushed response, "Sorry Leena, I didn't know you were there. I'll make it up to you when I get back!"

I watched the doors to the office close as she turned toward Harper, who was once again looking at the holographic display, this time I could clearly see him typing something with one hand as he reached a hand out for the data pad Oleena was carrying. Without further delay I rushed into the elevator that would take me to the cafeteria I had gotten my breakfast from. From there I went to my quarters to collect the cases I had packed with casual clothing, uniforms, and both my M-11 Suppressor and Talon were now sitting in a gun case specifically set aside for them, and another case I had previously requested the evening before. That case contained a heavily modified Cerberus Harrier, which in reality meant molded grips, a dull black color scheme, a variable magnification scope that topped out at four times normal vision, an actual fire selector, and last but not least a recoil reduction system combined with all the proper counterweights to reduce the rate that the barrel rose as it was fired.

I sighed as I looked at Sasha laying on the couch, looking at me as if I had eaten all of her steak, but I imagine that was going to change when I get back. I stood there for a moment before walking over to Sasha and gently began to rub the top of her head as I knelt down to look into her eyes, the same eyes that always made me think of a giant fish.

"Sasha, you be a good girl now, and don't eat my shoes while I am gone, or give Elaina any trouble and I'll pick up a nice big bone for you when I drop by the Citadel, alright?"

I didn't wait long for a response because soon after I had said that, Sasha tipped her head to one said and I watched warily as a lip curled up revealing teeth and releasing a low growl, "Alright Sasha, a bone and I'll leave Elaina a note to give you an extra steak for your lunch today."

I pulled my hand away from the top of her head slowly as I watched her tilt her head further to the side before putting her head down on the couch again with a muffled whine and that odd barking noise she makes. "Hey, I'll miss you too you silly varren, but that doesn't mean you won't have fun with Elaina, after all, wasn't she the person who originally found you running around the waste processors on this station?"

Sasha looked at me and gave me that all knowing look she usually does with that odd little twitch of the muscles on her jawline that draws her lips back in a sickening parody of a reptilian smile. "Yeah I know, you miss eating her slippers, right?"

I watched as the 'smile' got wider, and once I saw that I patted Sasha's head, "I thought so, you behave now, alright?"

In response all I got was a muffled breath that sounded vaguely like someone making the proverbial 'hmph'.

"I have to go now Sasha, I'll be back as soon as I can.", with a heartfelt wave goodbye I walked over to the door to my quarters and picked up the two cases nearby, giving one last look around my quarters I let out a sigh before I walked out, locking the door as I did so. As I walked toward the elevator to begin my trek to the dock that held the _Fury_ I spotted Graul as he was carrying his own gear, and somewhere deep inside I felt sorry for any of the poor bastards that ended up on the receiving end of the Revenant machinegun he had on his back. That was when I felt the nagging feeling that something was missing, it didn't take long for me to notice the empty place on his right leg where he usually had a Claymore, but it now held a bulky white object instead of the black painted Claymore shotgun he usually used.

"Graul... don't you usually have a Claymore?"

Graul snorted as he let a crooked grin curl to one side and indicated his right hip with a nonchalant gesture with his right hand, "I do, usually, but tell me whelp, when was the last time anyone ever saw a Krogan like me carry a human made shotgun like this?"

I thought about it for a moment, but I had to give Graul the honest answer, "I honestly can't tell you Graul, because I don't know for certain."

"Well, even if you said never you wouldn't be wrong, it is very uncommon to see a Krogan carry a pop-gun like this Eviscerator", I watched as he patted the weapon, I now knew was a folded Eviscerator, on it's partly worn exterior, "but my Claymore is getting some work done, and I have been wanting to use this again for a long time now."

That was when I remembered a little fact about Claymores, they were built for Krogan and were therefore just as tough as they were, "Graul, you didn't break it, did you?"

"No, but if I did I would be a legend among my kind. I would have been the first to break one outside of a fight."

We were both walking toward the elevator doors and I figured I might as well continue this conversation since it was going to be a while until the elevator got there anyway knowing my luck.

"Why is it getting worked on then?"

"I'm Krogan, and I don't believe in what you humans call 'overkill', so I am just making sure that it is fixed in ways I cannot."

I smiled and nodded in understanding, Graul may be a professional soldier that worked for money at one point, and even a Terminus warlord before that, but even he understood that being a professional that knew the inner workings of his own weapons didn't make him a gunsmith. I figured that he might be underestimating his abilities however, I had seen him put that shotgun of his together with a blindfold on a bet with a Turian that claimed he could do so even while drunk off his ass, too bad Graul apparently decided to prove he could do the same faster than he could.

"So what are you having done to it?"

I watched the crooked grin fade as Graul looked at me and leaned in before replying, "I'm having its mass accelerators replaced with better ones."

I gulped audibly when I heard this since the Claymore was essentially the top of the food chain when it came to shotguns without sacrificing vital statistics like heat dissipation or completely reworking the entire weapon to fire a larger 'caliber', but a Claymore was already a terrifying weapon because of its sheer stopping power and recoil. Now Graul was having his Claymore modified with 'better' mass accelerators, and that meant he SOMEHOW found something either more powerful, or more efficient than the ones he had in his Claymore.

"What?"

"I'm just wondering what a Krogan thinks overkill is..."

"I'll let you know when I can kill a Maw with Ripper in one shot, that is what a Krogan's idea of overkill is."

* * *

Walking through a station with two cases in my hands, and a third that was nestled inside of one of those containing my pistols, was never easy because of navigating through corridors that had doors that use a Haptic Interface in order to open, but it only got worse if you weren't the only one trying to get through a busy loading dock that was packed with mechs designed for ferrying cargo from large conveyors and storage facilities to their intended destinations, and dodging through the usual bustle of personnel that usually accompanied such tasks. Technicians, maintenance personnel of all kinds, crewmen ensuring everything was put into their proper positions, and even the handful of officers that oversaw the ordered chaos that occasionally got involved whenever something was missing or didn't belong. True chaos however was watching said crowd scatter before an armored, and armed, Krogan smiling gleefully as he cradled a Claymore in their hands as he fit an ammunition block into the ammunition feed and a four centimeter thick steel shield with a two millimeter thick titanium-steel sheath over that.

I looked nervously at Graul as he finished loading the metal block into the feed for his Claymore before he began to use his Omni-tool to change some of the settings, "Graul, do you really have to be fiddling around with your gun here?"

Graul looked at me from the corner of his eye while momentarily stopping in the act of changing settings, "Would you rather I do it on the ship?"

I looked at him uneasily as I eyed the weapon in his hands, "No..."

Graul looked at a section of the station's hull where the _Fury_ was docked, "Then I'll keep doing it here, the bulkheads are thicker."

"How far did you say that could penetrate into a Thresher Maw's hide again?"

"About half of a meter, why?", humor was visibly absent in his voice.

I asked warily, "That was before you had the modifications added, right?"

Graul turned his head toward me and answered pointedly, "Yes, is that a problem Whelp?"

I slowly shook my head, "Oh, no, no..., not at all... especially if we do run into a Thresher Maw...", and added under my breath, "or something as tough as one..."

Graul looked like he was about to say something but it was then, thankfully, that I heard a welcome distraction in the form of the very familiar voice of a certain female Turian calling my name, "Director, how kind of you to join us."

"Ah, Captain, when will we be able to depart?", I shouted back, all the while hoping that I would be able to find out how well Graul's Claymore would work on a Hecate soldier instead of here on Cronos station, or the _Fury_ for that matter because I doubted the hull would have been thick enough to stop all of the flechettes it utilized.

I was pleased to hear the kind of good news I was hoping for, "We can depart within the hour, that is of course assuming that these workers get their act together and finish loading up our supplies."

I walked toward where Captain Eronia's voice was coming from with Graul following behind me, but having him with a loaded Claymore didn't make me very comfortable considering the size of the metal flechettes it fired, thankfully it didn't take long before I saw Captain Eronia in what looked like an extremely crisp uniform, possibly to the point of being newly issued or acquired, standing near the airlock the _Fury_ was at docked, but I had to admit that I was a little surprised at how lively she looked compared to before the meeting the day before.

"Well Captain, what do you think about using the N-Space Drive to head into one of the most dangerous regions in the galaxy?" I asked indicating the _Fury_ by pointing with my chin through the window behind Captain Eronia as I continued walking toward her.

"May I be honest with you about that Director?"

"Of course Captain, I would like to hear any objections, and after all she, and all of the crew aboard her, happen to be under your command."

Captain Eronia nodded grimly as she opened the door to access the airlock, and it didn't take long before she asked the question I was expecting while we were walking down the corridor to the _Fury's_ own airlock, "I know we used the Null Space Drive to get here from Icarus, but that is still a short distance away as far as on the galactic scale, and you and I both know exactly where this ship is going to be heading. What I mean to say Director, is that while I appreciate the faith you have in myself, my crew, and the _Fury_ , I simply cannot say that I share the same faith in the technology behind the N-Space Drive because of its origins..."

I listened to her as she spoke, she even went on to include her concerns about bringing Kai Leng aboard, and personally I didn't blame her for that last part and frankly I agreed with her on several of the points she raised, including the fact that we were heading into possibly one of the most, if not the most, dangerous places in the galaxy, but eventually I needed to say something so I chose to answer honestly.

"Captain, I share many of those concerns but I am willing to as you had said, put my faith in all of you and this ship, but I am putting more faith into you and the crew to see us back to safe harbor, wherever that may happen to be."

"Thank you sir, but what about Kai Leng and his... choice of personnel?", Captain Eronia asked.

"I'd be surprised if even one of them wasn't human."

"Then I think you may be shocked Director.", and with Eronia's comment, I looked at her and said,

"What do you mean Captain?"


	3. Storm Front Part 1

Mass Effect: Another Illusive Man – Storm Front (Part 1)

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own the Mass Effect series or its affiliated products, Bioware and its affiliates, or any other series'/copyrighted item I may mention.

**Author's note: Well folks, I hate to say this, but I don't know when the next chapter is coming after this one, my life is for lack of a better description "Going straight to Hell" and I don't see it getting any better with the circumstances I find myself in so I promise I'll try my best to keep this going, but by all means I'm not calling it quits on this yet. Furthermore, I once again apologize for the last update folks, and I hope you liked the last chapter I added, if not please let me know, after all I can't improve without feedback! Thank you for helping me improve this story for your reading pleasure, and thank you for those few dedicated fans that have been checking in on this story.**

"Talking"- normal conversation will not have any changes

" _Talking_ "-characters thinking to themselves OR are mentally conversing (telepathy, facial expressions, etc.) will be in Italic in normal speech format, written words will be in bold as well

* * *

Ian's POV (Continued from Chapter 2)

I watched the door to the _Fury's_ exterior airlock close and the automated decontamination sequence began its cycle, sweeping over us with an all too familiar bright, blue light and releasing a highly potent but safe, disinfectant into the air as we waited to access the interior of the ship.

Captain Eronia sighed before replying, "Exactly what I meant Director, I read over what little I could of Kai Leng's personnel file and I wasn't expecting anything less than a strike team filled with nothing but Cerberus hardliners touting xenophobic tendencies large enough to match their taste in heavy weapons, but I didn't expect what he brought aboard."

I leaned against the side of the airlock as the decontamination sequence began reaching the final stages of its cycle, "What does the team comprise of exactly?"

I watched as Captain Eronia adopted a stance that was rather relaxed and practically oozed a calm façade to mask what I figured was an attempt at ill-concealed humor which was only further enhanced by her attempting to hide a grin, "Well Director, maybe it is best if you meet them yourself. I can't really explain it much better than that."

With her reply the airlock door finally opened and both Graul and Captain Eronia walked through the door while I continued leaning against the wall and said to no one in particular, "Perhaps, but I wouldn't mind someone just telling me what I want to know without a mystery involved."

With my saying that I quickly stood upright and followed close behind the hulking Krogan warlord under my employ and Captain Eronia. It didn't take more than about a minute of walking down nearly uniform corridors that were devoid of the emblem signifying the _Fury's_ origin as a Cerberus ship, before Captain Eronia pointed down a corridor and stated in Graul's general direction that his quarters were down the corridor and behind the third door on the left, but surprisingly when Captain Eronia and I started walking again I wasn't pointed in the direction of a room or a seemingly random doorway, but was instead ushered into an elevator and started moving upward and according to the haptic interface to the right of the door we were heading to deck two. When the elevator finally arrived on deck two I followed Captain Eronia out and when it was apparent that we weren't going to be stopping near any of the crew quarters I finally decided to ask where we were going.

"Where are we going Captain?"

She barely turned her head to answer as we turned down another corridor heading toward the front of the ship, "I don't know where you're going to be bunking Director, so I was heading to the CIC to locate my XO and find out if they sorted out the issue we were having with quartering you and the additional personnel we have aboard."

"Couldn't you just use your Omni-tool to contact them?"

That was when Captain Eronia stopped dead in her tracks and turned and gave me a glare that was rather frightening because it reminded me of how my grandfather used to stare at me whenever he was angry with me, and it was rather frightening in of itself.

"Director, I would like to point out that you have not met my Executive Officer yet, and to be honest I would like to reassign her if necessary because of how she treats the crew and her fellow officers."

That was when we heard a voice from down the corridor, and as I heard what the newcomer said I couldn't help but mentally face-palm as I felt one of my eyes twitch in recognition to an underlying tone to the voice that immediately reminded me of a female version of Harper and I also noticed that Captain Eronia's eyes flicked down the hall in annoyance, "Captain, has the loading crew finally brought aboard the last of the cargo?"

"Almost Commander Veronin, we were just discussing a past acquaintance of the Director's.", and as Captain Eronia said that I was hoping to have dodged a metaphorical bullet only to find out that I ran into a different one as the rather young looking woman that gave the outward impression of being fresh out of high school with a voice to match that initial observation complemented by cherubic features, grey eyes, and blonde hair that was light enough to be passed off as being a natural but pale silver, but despite but despite the outwardly warm demeanor had she did possess an intense air of what I assumed was indifferent superiority and arrogance.

Commander Veronin asked with an icy tone that could chill anyone to the bone, "Director Stone I assume?"

"You are quite correct Commander, is there something you need?", I asked cautiously in her general direction as I maintained eye contact with Captain Eronia, who currently was staring the Commander with a barely concealed and apprehensive look of disgust and building annoyance, obviously from the mere presence of the Commander, and I had noticed something of the same beginning to show in the Commander as well.

"I'm here to welcome you aboard the _Fury_ , and to notify you that Senior Field Operative Leng is waiting for you in the CIC. Do you require an escort or perhaps someone to assist with your kit sir?", I noticed that the Commander had put on the appearance of having actual control of the ship, and considering how she was acting with Captain Eronia I had begun to suspect that she was a Cerberus hardliner from before the reforms I had put into place were being enforced where she probably missed quite a few meetings that would have weeded her out for eventual reassignment to a 'Purist' operated vessel.

With that thought in mind I found myself thinking, _"Yay me, I'm stuck with someone who is most likely a human supremacist on a two-hundred meter long light frigate equipped with the most advanced FTL drive and weaponry currently available, and that isn't even counting Kai Leng so as far as my luck goes I'm par for the course, but only time will tell. as far as the good news goes I suppose."_

Just after thinking that I could practically feel the urge to abuse my power and leave the Commander here at Cronos station, but I remembered that I needed a reason to justify such an act, such as the Commander managing to actually give me a reason to do so such as seeing that she had violated Cerberus conduct codes, even though I found the fact that Cerberus even had rules of conduct to be laughable considering their history.

"Commander, I am perfectly happy with carrying my own kit until I know where I'm bunking.", I drew the Commander's attention to my cases by lifting them slightly, and when I did so I narrowed my eyes at the Commander while I remarked in a cold tone to match hers, "That way I don't have to bother Captain Eronia or her crew further, and remember Commander, I'll be watching how this entire crew works together so that I may find out who needs replacing.", I paused for a moment before adding, "After all, I need something to do while we are heading to our destination."

I then looked at Captain Eronia, "With that said Commander, please notify Operative Leng that I will be along shortly, but first I would like to continue my conversation with the Captain."

I listened as Commander Voronin took my statement as some kind of perverse compliment because she replied quite cheerily, "Of course sir, I will be in the CIC if you need me."

I watched from the corner of my eye as she turned around and proceeded through the corridor to the door at the end before vanishing through it, and just as it closed completely I remarked to Captain Eronia before proceeding to the CIC with her following close behind, "So, Commander Voronin is one of those people."

"Which kind is that Director?"

"The kind that can get under your skin and annoy you without trying."

"Perhaps, but she doesn't like Aliens that much either."

"Captain, I'm glad we're on the same page.", I said flatly as I smiled flatly while we walked toward the CIC's door.

We were about to reach the door when Captain Eronia tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Same here Director, now what was that phrase again? 'Into the breach once more', I believe was the saying?"

I stopped just a few feet away from the door and I felt memories begin to push at the back of my conscious mind, each wanting to be seen and heard again, "'-and fill it with our English dead.', I heard that phrase many times before from someone I knew a long time ago Captain, and she loved to say it whenever things were getting to be too much of a struggle."

I felt a hand place itself on my shoulder as Captain Eronia moved next to me, "Director, I've seen that same look on a lot of people in my life, before and after my tenure with the Turian navy, and I'll say what I always have. If you want to talk about anything let me know, because as long as you're on my ship in my care, and I have always tried to treat my crew as close friends."

"Thank you Captain, but this is something I've already come to terms with I believe. I just have a lot of trouble with leaving my past dead and buried."

"I understand sir, but it never hurts to talk to someone."

I nodded and said, "I know."

* * *

A few minutes later...

Captain Eronia and I walked into the CIC and watched as personnel around the CIC stood at attention amidst the white light cast from the overhead lighting and the orange glow from the multitude of Haptic Interfaces and the soft azure overtone from the map near the center of the CIC, and it had taken a moment for me to realize that the ship's AI, TIM, was now saying over the CIC's intercom system, "Captain on the deck, XO Voronin is relieved."

And with TIM stating that Captain Eronia was in the CIC, the assorted officers on duty CIC personnel began getting back to their duties and standing next to the galactic map being projected in the center of the CIC was Kai Leng in an all too familiar set of armor while he was fiddling around with a visor, that was before he noticed I was standing next to Captain Eronia at the entrance to the CIC, and as he noticed I was in the room he almost immediately hooked it on his armor's breastplate by what I could only guess was a magnetic strip on the visor itself, before motioning for me to join him by the galactic map.

I walked over to the map with Captain Eronia in tow as she accepted status reports from several of the officers in the CIC, and when we finally reached Kai Leng he simply said, "You're earlier than I expected Mr. Stone, I had figured you for the type to look around a bit before getting to work."

I looked at him before giving a glance in the direction of Commander Voronin as she started barking off various orders to several of the officers and crewman near the Haptic Interfaces closest to the front of the CIC but just off to the left side of the navigation section, and as I looked in the Commander's direction I said, "Let's say I had a very good reason to avoid my normal routine."

I only listened to Kai Leng with an absolute absence of any real attempt at attention until he said something that had caught my attention, "-Commander is quite the annoying one. I happen to share her views on non-humans but she is far more vocal about it."

"So you don't like her either Kai Leng?", I asked with curiosity practically urging the question out of me.

I waited for an answer and it took what felt like eternity before I heard an answer that I was not expecting from Kai Leng, "No, she is allowing her opinions to influence her duties," Kai Leng leaned against the railing to look at the galactic map and gestured with a hand toward the personnel scrambling around the CIC under the harsh barking of Commander Voronin, "and it is beginning to show when you look at the crew whenever she is near."

I took a moment to look at a few of the faces amongst the CIC's cadre of officers and I saw a single common emotion on their faces, and that was disgust, and in almost all of those cases it grew visibly deeper as they heard Commander Voronin give orders and demanded status checks on various systems with an almost tyrannical fervor, "Has she been doing this the entire time you've been aboard Kai Leng?"

"Yes, but it has gotten noticeably worse from when I first stepped into the CIC, and when she received word that the Captain was escorting you aboard."

"You think she's acting like this because we're here?"

Kai Leng watched the Commander issue more orders that were outright hostile and directed to push her fellow officers to the breaking point but they carried out their orders regardless with Captain Eronia stopping by each officer in turn, no doubt politely rephrasing the orders issued by her XO and undoubtedly list their complaints about the XO, "I believe she doesn't know how to treat people she doesn't like with at least professional courtesy, and I do think she is also craving attention from someone higher up in the chain of command. What do you intend on doing with her if you don't like how she treats the crew?"

"Personally I plan on letting the Captain deal with her in whatever fashion she deems necessary."

"How diplomatic of you, but something tells me you want a decisive and quick outcome, preferably as soon as possible, because you forget that I trained you Mr. Stone so I know how you think, so go on, tell me I might even find the idea entertaining."

"I was discussing the matter of how the XO acts with Captain Eronia before entering the CIC, and I told her to keep an eye on her XO, and that should she try seizing command, she has full authority to do whatever she deems necessary as a suitable punishment."

"I see."

There was a moment of silence before Kai Leng asked, "So, how long do you think this crew will hold together?"

"I suspect that they will work just fine, despite what you may think Operative.", the reply came from a familiar flanging voice from behind Kai Leng and myself, and both Kai Leng and I recognized it as belonging to Captain Eronia causing the both of us to turn to face her.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything Director." she stood giving a gentle nod toward me, before giving Kai Leng an impassive stare that basically told him to back off and pointed at the railing and small console in front of said railing, "Operative, I hate to move you from your place, however you are in my way."

Shockingly Kai Leng had backed away quite professionally, and despite what I thought of the xenophobic assassin, he even managed a subtle nod and took a place farther off to her left giving her a comfortable meter's worth of space. When Captain Eronia reached the console she stood straight and said, "TIM, I want to address the crew, please activate all intercoms for a ship wide broadcast."

A mere second or so later I heard the audible reply from the disembodied voice of TIM, the ship's AI, and I noticed what I failed to hear when it announced the Captain's arrival on the bridge, its voice had a cultured feel to it, not quite the same as someone born to privilege but more of what you would expect from a stereotypical butler, "Ship wide broadcast is available, now."

And without missing a moment Captain Eronia said, "Attention all hands, this is your Captain speaking. As you are all aware this ship is one of a kind, with a one of a kind crew, and equally unique equipment. Each and every one of you is a handpicked veteran that has served aboard a ship for the last few years from across no less than four separate navies, as well as private companies of upstanding caliber, and then forged into a crew tested only by settling into this ship as a recent assignment to a shipyard a few short months ago. Today however that all changes, in a few short minutes we will depart from this station to hunt down anything flying Hecate's colors, broadcasts their IFF, or even carries their personnel or hides their equipment, but we will not do so in some isolated backwater system in Citadel space, or even in the Alliance's own sovereign territory, we are heading into what is quite possibly the greatest natural threat to spacefaring vessels since the advent of mass accelerator weaponry. Today we march into the Arquilan Cluster, the nightmare made manifest, and we will prevail there, but not due to the technology at our disposal, it won't be due to shipboard weapons, it won't even be due to how effective our armor is, it is all up to each and every one of you, a crew that for the most part I have worked with aboard our previous ship in the Terminus hunting pirates for the last few months before we were given this grand ship. With that said, we are as ghosts now, an invisible blade that the enemy will find breaking their will, a shadow that they will fear as it leaves nothing behind but burning ash and shattered hulls, make me proud to serve alongside you, make yourselves proud to serve alongside each other. This is Captain Eronia and my order is, Helm, clear space dock and get us to minimum safe jump range, and all hands prep for N-Space jump in T-minus 40 minutes."

Outside of the _Fury_ magnetic clamps were detached from the hull and the boarding tubes were retracted back to Cronos station's external docks, and like the sleek predator she was, the _Fury_ flared its engines for a brief moment to provide enough speed to clear the dock and begin to turn away from the station and the crimson sun behind it, its silhouette was pitch black against the blood red star but as it moved away the red light glinted eerily off of the _Fury's_ ivory hull which gave the frigate a fiery appearance. With little delay the engines fired again with the blue-white light of active exhaust ports, and a soft flickering across the hull as kinetic barriers activated to prevent debris from hitting the hull, but far from unprepared to be raised to their maximum output at a moment's notice all but disappeared against the black void of space, appearing as though another star had joined the heavens.

There was apprehension in the CIC, indeed the entire ship was abuzz with a newfound nervous energy, but it was not due to Captain Eronia's speech, and it certainly wasn't due to my being here, so it left me wondering about what everyone could possibly be worried about, aside from the Arquilan Cluster and its many hazards because they seemed to actually enjoy the fact we were heading there.

So it was this curiosity that prompted me to ask Captain Eronia, "Why is everyone so nervous?"

Captain Eronia turned toward me and simply asked, "How heavy was your last meal?"

Kai Leng interjected, "What does that have anything to do with his question? He had asked you why the entire crew is nervous, and frankly I want to know as well!"

Unfazed by Kai Leng's outburst and more than a little curious about what Captain Eronia meant I replied, "I had some scrambled eggs with tea and biscuits, why do you ask?"

Captain Eronia simply smiled and said, "You're alright then Director. Operative, what did you eat this morning?"

I knew Kai Leng well enough to recognize when he was about to say a snide comment when I interrupted him with a raised hand, "Kai Leng, please answer the question."

"I had probably twice what you ate Mr. Stone, I'm a biotic, remember?."

Captain Eronia stared at him for a moment before a sympathetic look of pity took hold of her features, "Sorry Operative, but I made sure the biotics in my crew kept their breakfast light today because we were going to be using the N-Space Drive, and you're about to find out why."

Kai Leng looked at her and let out a question that was obviously meant to annoy her, "Let me guess Captain, rough ride?"

Captain Eronia stood there and gave Kai Leng a predatory smile before answering, "I'm going to enjoy the next few minutes. Oh, and Director, I suggest you stand a bit closer to me."

* * *

Narrator's POV, The _Fury's_ Engineering compartment

Deep in the Engineering compartment of the _Fury_ a silver object stood in the middle of several consoles and seemed to draw attention to itself more so than the Oceanus Drive Core as it gave off its own melodic hum, some of the silver object resembled the Asari race's love of chromed metallic surfaces, with its smooth and graceful curvature as it swooped across a depression in the middle of Engineering, and the rest of it was a slapdash mess of sharp angles laid out in a semi-organized manner reaching toward the ceiling as they connected several dozen electrical conduits that lead into the central power distribution network as they began to draw power from non-essential parts of the ship and the ship's reactor. Inside the machine however, where no one could see it, an intact Prothean artifact resembling a large slab of pointed metal began to hum forcing a ring of energy to build in a small hole in its center, forming it and shaping the energy into a single emerald ball of light.

Nearby however, deeper in the machine itself, a single amber crystal that had been inlaid into what appeared to be a single solid plate of a silver alloy, it was well hidden within the Prothean components used in the construction of the N-Space Drive because many of the components couldn't be duplicated and it was assumed that the crystal itself was simply fabricated in a Prothean lab, but the crystal itself had begun to do something unexpected and it was so simple and unobtrusive to start, but it had begun growing as it drew a bit more power than what was needed to operate the systems for the FTL jump, and smaller crystals began to form on its surface before they themselves broke off and fell to the floor below by bouncing off of metal plates, coils, power cables, wires, and finally a lone Turian technician's head as he passed below to check a console under the N-Space Drive. When the crystals hit their fringe and scalp he brought a hand up to his head in annoyance, grasping at the offending objects and found a handful of small and surprisingly small crystals formed from an amber-like material that was warm to the touch and after a moment of thought he looked up at the N-Space Drive itself before he called someone else over to find out where the crystals had come from.

* * *

Ian's POV, the _Fury's_ CIC (continued)

That was when TIM broke into the conversation over the intercom, "Attention all hands, prepare for N-Space Jump in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. now."

Captain Eronia looked at Kai Leng and said, "I hope you don't mind that meal the second time around Operative.", just as TIM said "2."

Once TIM said, "NOW.", however, the inside of the _Fury_ was going about its relatively unchanged routine, minus several of the crew heading for the nearest bathroom or leaning against the nearest wall or console, but on the outside of the ship there was a slight change in front of the _Fury_ _'s_ hull as a gentle ripple began to appear in front of the frigate, and eventually that ripple turned into a rift that was black as the void and completely without any form of illumination. Inside of the _Fury_ personnel that were near windows immediately looked away as nausea and vertigo began to claw at their senses, and in some cases members of the crew, particularly the Asari members and biotics of all species, clutched at their stomachs and were sickened to the core. In the CIC however there was only one person that was having an issue with their stomach.

I looked at Kai Leng as he was giving off all of the signs that someone was about to lose their lunch all over something, "Kai Leng, you aren't looking too well, can't say I am either with the way I feel, but you look like you're going to..."

I didn't get to finish what I was saying as Kai Leng rushed to the door back out to the hall and the Commander rushed after him and put a hand on his shoulder asking him if he was alright, at least she had been before he lost his breakfast all over the floor and her shoes. I looked back to the Captain she gave a humored chuckle and said, "I told him he was going to have problems. Now, I know that we might be have some issues with the N-Space Drive but I imagine we might be able to at least report that little side-effect again, but in the meantime I suggest you get to your quarters."

"I still don't know where they are Captain."

"Oh yes, that's right." after a moment Captain Eronia looked across the CIC with an evil looking grin and gave a shout across the room, "Commander, when you head out to get some new shoes on you should probably escort the Director to his quarters, unless you want to keep him waiting?"

I heard a garbled reply that sounded suspiciously like the Commander said something about Captain Eronia's 'uppity' attitude but I decided to chime in on this just to get a bit of a joke out of it for my benefit, "Oh, and Commander, please give me a brief tour of the ship while you're escorting me to my quarters, I would love to see this fine vessel again."

"Yes, of course sir... I would be delighted to.", I could practically hear the seething anger boiling beneath the Commander's icy glare as she looked at Captain Eronia's back since her front was now directed back to the galactic map, and by extension several of the other officers gathered around it.

"Come on Director, you need to get to your quarters and I need to get a new pair of shoes."

All I heard was that single sentence from the Commander before I felt a pair of feminine hands grab my left arm through my suit and began to pull me toward the doorway in such a manner that I barely avoided colliding with Kai Leng as he apparently finished emptying his stomach onto the floor, and just as the doors closed behind me I saw Kai Leng groggily stand up and he mouthed, 'I deserve a pay raise Stone.', or at least that was what I hoped he said.

* * *

I watched the silver colored walls fly past me as I struggled to keep up with Commander Voronin as she gave me a bare bones tour of the ship while we were apparently heading toward the room I was assigned, and I wasn't too surprised to see her give rather brief and perhaps even rude replies to the various crewmembers that actually tried to offer some form of greeting to her as she passed by, no matter if they were human or not.

I figured right now was as good a time as any to start at least a somewhat civil conversation with the Commander, mostly to just gauge her mood about this whole situation, "Commander, I hate to ask this, but where exactly are we going?"

I wasn't too surprised when she slowed her pace and turned her head to one side as she answered, "Deck 3, section 8, room 10, you will be bunking with Lieutenant Richard Harrington, he's a combat engineer from the marine contingent."

"Are you always such a charming conversationalist Commander?"

And just like that she stopped completely and turned on me rather abruptly, "No offense Sir, but do you have some kind of problem with me?"

 _"Ah, straight to the point then, shame I couldn't actually just have a relatively nice conversation with an officer with a stick up their ass, and a possible hatred for the nonhuman crew."_ , I thought grimly before I replied in my own blunt manner, "I do if you usually treat all of the crew like you have been, including your superior officer as well, and believe me Captain, I am not impressed by what I have seen of your conduct thus far."

My statements were met with a silent, and if I hadn't known any better shocked expression, and impassive gaze from the Commander before she faintly said, "Director, I lost my family in the First Contact War and to be honest, I don't think I will ever forgive anyone for letting it happen."

Suddenly just like that, I felt like a complete and total ass, and to make matters worse her opinion of the nonhuman crew was suddenly explained, and sadly enough I even understood it, "Commander, tell me, do you really blame every alien or just the one in charge of this ship?"

I wasn't too surprised that my question was met with silence, "Commander, I know you may not like aliens, but as long as you work in this organization I ask that you show them the same courtesy that you would expect from a human, I don't want you to like, I don't even want you to accept it, but I do want you to at least act like it because eventually you'll see that not every alien can be blamed for the actions of one idiot in charge over two decades ago. I understand why you have been acting this way, but does it really help your ability to carry out your duties if you alienate yourself from the rest of the crew?"

I watched the Commander as I let what I said settle in, and I was beginning to wonder if I had said too much about what was obviously a sore subject when I once again heard her speak faintly, "No sir, it won't help. I'll try to do my best sir, but I don't guarantee anything."

I smiled softly and walked up to her side and gave her a small nudge in the elbow with my own, "That's all I want from you Commander, do your best, it's all anyone can ask of you. Now, come on, we can't keep you standing around in those shoes now can we?"

Commander Voronin looked down at her feet and let out an annoyed sigh before answering, "No, we can't sir.", she hesitated before speaking again, "Do you mind if I get myself another pair of shoes before I take you to your quarters?"

I give a slight chuckle, "No, I don't mind. I'd rather you worry about yourself first honestly."

I looked at her as she stared back at me and she said, "My quarters are just around the corner, give me a minute to get my other shoes on, you're welcome to come in if you want."

I wasn't quite happy with the Commander, but after finding out her history she was more or less harmless in my opinion, "I suppose that would be alright, but only if you are sure about it Commander."

I watched as she gave a derisive snort before answering, "I don't know why you are saying that sir, I'm only grabbing a pair of shoes, so you don't have to make it sound like it's a big deal.", and with that comment she started walking down the hall again.

I kept a respectable distance behind the Commander as I followed her to her quarters, and when she stepped in I did see something I wasn't expecting, she was quartered in one of the few private rooms on the ship, which in of itself wasn't really a surprise, but what caught my eye was the fact that she had a lot of posters from Anime, including one from Arpeggio of Blue Steel. I let my eyes wander around the room catching sight of several bookshelves of assorted manga, and I saw a lot of collectibles, many of which I felt that I had a long, long, time ago despite it being just over a year ago.

"So I see you are a fan of Anime as well Commander?"

"Perhaps. I guess I still have this stuff around because it helped me cope with not having my parents around.", I watched as Commander Voronin dipped her head slightly and her shoulders had visibly become somewhat slack, I immediately regretted asking the question.

"Commander, perhaps we should continue with what we were doing.", I watched as she quickly changed her shoes and started walking toward the door, but I put the case in my left hand down and put my hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry if I have touched upon a sensitive subject, but you know that you can always talk to people, Captain Eronia might even want to listen if you ask."

I felt her shoulder pull itself from under my hand slowly, and I listened to the Commander's voice tremble as she spoke, "I don't want to burden anyone with what I've been through sir, least of all you or the Captain. I think I have done more than enough of that already."

I opened my mouth to say something when all of a sudden I heard something rather unexpected, alarms were starting to go off as the lighting in the hallway turned from the harsh white to a dimmer yellow-white with intermittent flashes of crimson, all the while I listened silently to a ship wide announcement given in TIM's faux-cultured voice, "Attention all hands, action stations! Repeat, all hands to action stations!"

I took a single look at the Commander before asking, "You've got shoes on that are good for running, right?"

I listened to stifled laughter and I had a blur of a uniform and officer's cap running past dragging me behind, "Now's not the time to be making stupid comments sir, come on already!"

It took a lot less time than I thought to actually get to the CIC, even with the absurdly slow elevator, and upon rushing in both myself and Commander Voronin blurted out the same question, "What's going on Captain?"

Captain Eronia stood behind the galactic map with the CIC a flurry of controlled chaos around her as system status checks were run and reports filtered in from several crewman across the CIC.

"Captain, all weapon systems are at combat readiness, Javelin tubes One through Six are loaded, all forward batteries are primed, and the Fire Lance is at combat standby."

I stood there as I kept listening to reports and status checks were announced across the CIC by the raised voices of bridge officers. Captain Eronia turned toward me as she paid only partial attention to my presence and walked a short distance to stop in front of me before addressing me in a grave tone, "Director, we dropped out of Null Space much earlier than expected, and according to all of our data logs we should be somewhere in the Traverse however according to what we see with sensors and visual confirmation, we're in the Maelstrom's outer edge in the galactic south quarter."

I stood there trying to absorb the information she had stated and in that moment a shout was heard that caused all of the CIC to stop for what seemed like an eternity despite its brief span of a fraction of a second before it was renewed with a feverish vigor.

"Captain, sensors, I have two new contacts! One Cruiser, closest ID is Geneva Class, second contact ID'd as a Stalingrad class heavy frigate!"

Captain Eronia shouted, "How in the Spirits' damned Hell did you miss them when we dropped out Braddock!?"

An officer off toward the right side of the room at a console in a depression in the floor called out, "Captain, correcting my initial report, no radiation emissions, no engine output, no mass effect fields either, they're dead ma'am."

I asked, "Define dead please."

I watched as a man that was probably in his latter twenties turned toward me part of the way and said, "Both contacts aren't giving off the thermal readings you would expect from even a ship with the baffles from our engines or even running silent, and there aren't any indications of power with a visual sweep with the hull cameras. I'm running passive sweeps now, but I highly recommend pinging with actives."

I looked at Captain Eronia and asked, "What are you thinking Captain?"

She stood there looking at me with a glance over her right shoulder as she leaned on the railing for the galactic map's projector system, "Mr. Braddock, run active sensors and see what you can find. Lieutenant Commander Lorthan, if we hear the all clear from Braddock I want the Emissions Storage shut down and start venting into space, we'll dump the static discharge when we reach Kasek's Haven or the first gas giant we find that is relatively safe."

There was a pair of people, a human, and a Turian saying, "Aye-aye Ma'am.", both replies came from opposite sides of the room as Captain Eronia ordered holographic images of the ships that the _Fury's_ sensors had picked up to be displayed instead of the galactic map, and we both watched images of both ships flicker to life in a bright blue, at least before the data from the sensors was added to the images we were seeing. With that information the ships remained, but only as a shadow of what their intact forms would have been, wireframe images of intact hulls were plastered over a pair of wrecks in order to show what they would have been had they not been destroyed. The frigate was barely recognizable since it appeared to have been literally blown apart from the inside which left very little of it intact especially amidships where the engineering section would have been, and the cruiser didn't fare any better with a massive cut having been burned away with a single twisting cut down its length that spiraled from the top of the ship and around its hull once before ending at the ruined starboard engine assemblies on the corresponding 'wing', and a number of decks were obviously missing from the bottom of the ship due to some kind of explosion, but at least the hangar looked intact despite being near the epicenter of the blast.

While I stood next to Captain Eronia I heard her mutter something under her breath, and had I not been standing there I would never have heard her say, "Spirits, it reminds me of the stories you hear about the Collectors."

I took a moment to tap her shoulder before saying, "Captain, I need to speak to you about a possible issue we may have in the future regarding the Hecate Organization's naval assets. I also want to know what you would suggest we do while we wait for engineering to tell us what happened to drop us out of FTL."

"One moment Director. Braddock, do you see anything on the sensors?"

I turned to look toward the man she was addressing and he said, "There's nothing out there Captain, just a lot of debris, and some kind of particle trail that originates several kilometers away and then just disappears. I've also run a comparative scan of the cruiser's hull and I haven't found any kind of weapon that could have cut it open like that. I'm also afraid that accurate sensor sweeps are pretty much unreliable at this point due to the Maelstrom's effects on sensors, but I'm not reading any active pockets of gas so we should be safe for a few hours before we start seeing the unnatural... uh... weather... this region is known for."

Captain Eronia turned her head toward me and asked, "Director, in the briefing you said that there were maps in that data core. Do you think there might be more on that ship?"

I shrugged, "I suppose there could be, but it would be far more likely that they would be on the primary navigational computers, and they would also most likely be secured files that only a senior officer could open. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Braddock said that both ships are without power which would mean a zero-g boarding action, correct?"

Captain Eronia simply nodded and I let out a depressed sigh, "Alright Captain, I think we'll board the cruiser, but keep this ship ready to run at a moment's notice."

"I'll notify our shuttle pilots then, that wreck isn't powered so docking directly won't work, and you will most likely need someone to restart the reactors, if it's possible."

"Well, I have one question Captain, are you up to briefing the boarding party or should I do it?"

"Personally Director, as you have implied it so well, this is my crew and not yours, so I'll do it. I'll warn you now though, the marines you'll be heading out with are a bit odd. I also recommend keeping that Krogan you brought aboard close at hand, I read up on that operative of yours and I am not too keen on letting him get into a fight with a walking tank."

I nodded, "Don't worry Captain, if Kai Leng starts anything I'll make sure to finish it before Graul does. I probably won't enjoy it as much as they would though."

I turned and walked to the door of the CIC as I heard Captain Eronia start giving orders again and notifying Commander Voronin that she was in command until she returned from the briefing.

I made my way down the hallway before I stopped to ask TIM to lead me to my quarters through my Omni-tool, and despite taking a good ten minutes to get there after misreading the map TIM had sent me twice before I finally made it there and once I actually got into the room I saw that it was probably the same size as my first apartment, which really wasn't that large since I had grabbed one that was barely bigger than the kitchen in my old house back in the United States before I moved to the United Kingdom.

When I actually took a look around where I was going to be bunking I was more than a bit surprised to see a Union Jack hanging from the wall and a picture of who I assumed was the current head of the British royal family, Queen Victoria the fourth it said on a small plaque on the frame that was sitting on a small table in the corner, and a small postcard near it saying "I love Mum" printed in a black italic style over the Union Jack. Somehow it just warmed my heart to know that no matter how things changed, the more it stayed the same as it were, and with that thought in mind I placed the cases I was carrying on the empty bed opposite of the occupied part of the room and opened the case with my clothes to remove my smaller gun case, and then opened the case that held my armor.

I took a moment to look at the heavy armor resting inside of the armor case, and with one hand I brushed away at a small scuff mark on the helmet within. Silently I lifted the helmet to look into the red eye slits and looked at the faint image of my reflection from the mirror like finish on the surface of what I now knew to be the Copperhead frontline armor that was commonly issued to Cerberus Centurions, my armor wasn't physically different when compared to the standard issue version, as far as its features went anyway, aside from a slightly better kinetic barrier system and a more efficient power distribution system along with an Omni-tool installed in each gauntlet at my request. I looked at my reflection for a moment longer before I sighed in annoyance as a nagging thought, the same one that had been in the back of my mind since the day Harper had a sudden change of heart about my asking to join Cerberus, let alone any of the times he had originally turned down my suggestions about changing this organization's original outlook on the galaxy at large, and to me none of what happened since then has made sense. Yes Harper acted just like the smug bastard you talk to in Mass Effect 2 and 3, but after talking to him for the first couple of weeks he was skittish, jumping at shadows and refusing to go anywhere near the archeology division. With that said I often wondered why he was so interested in anything that the archeology division found out about the Monolith we had sitting in the Xeno-archeology labs, but I had always guessed that was from what had happened there more than anything else even if he did avoid going near it.

I let out another sigh while I put my helmet on the pile of armor components as they sat lying in the case, as thoughts whirled around in my mind in a chaotic mess before I shook them away and began the somewhat tedious task of putting my armor on. After about two minutes I had the armored leggings on. Another five minutes later and most of the armor was properly secured except for my helmet. I looked down at the helmet with a sniff of contempt as I remembered how many times I had put round after round into helmets just like these in Mass Effect 3, and right now I absolutely hated the irony that I was about to put one on. I looked at the helmet a moment longer before sighing in annoyance and began to put my hair up in a topknot which I knew was going to be rather uncomfortable with a massive knot of hair being pushed against my head, but it was a small price to pay to keep anything from causing a head wound or death, at least in theory. I left the helmet on the bottom of the armor case as I placed my Talon on my right hip and my M-11 Suppressor on my left, and once they were secured I scooped up the helmet and put it under my arm and started to turn around to exit the room and begin the long walk down to the shuttle bay, and eventually walking the halls of a damaged Hecate cruiser.

Needless to say, I moved through the halls with an urgent pace as I listened in on the occasional conversation as I walked past, none of them held anything of interest until I was about to enter the lift so I could begin my long elevator ride down to the shuttle bay. All I heard on the way that did catch my interest was that several personnel that I recognized, albeit vaguely, as being part of the engineering staff as they made their way to Engineering with occasional shouts being tossed between them to hurry down to Engineering. The only reason I even dismissed the shouting was the fact that they had a job to do, and I had one that I simply felt I had to do.

I turned down the hallway in order to get to the lift down to the shuttle bay, and when I tapped the controls only to get the most horrific sight I had ever seen, it was a simple image depicting the lift was currently moving from the deck the shuttle bay was located on, that meant I had to wait for the lift and then ride it down. The worst experience I could ever have was apparently just moments away with riding in an agonizingly slow elevator. That was what I was thinking when I saw the doors slide open without a sound as a hand land on my shoulder with a loud clap while I listened to fairly loud footsteps followed by the question, "Why are all of the elevators so slow these days?"

I chuckled softly, "Well Graul, I would imagine it is some kind of safety measure, unless of course it is just cheaper to build a slow elevator compared to a faster one."

I stepped into the elevator with Graul following close behind, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his armor looked like it was actually polished to a nearly perfect shine, and it was also quite apparent that Graul was at least mildly excited about something.

"So Graul, are you looking forward to this boarding action?"

I leaned my head back and turned my head slightly to get a better look at Graul's reaction, and I did see his reaction, or more accurately a lack of one because he was just standing there looking at me.

I started to feel a little nervous since the original glance in my direction was more of a blank, and emotionless stare.

"Graul, is something wrong?"

Graul looked directly in front of him after maybe a few seconds after I asked and he said, "No, there is nothing wrong. I was just thinking about what we might find on that ship."

"So you're worried?"

Graul remained silent as he tapped the controls to start our long elevator ride down to the shuttle bay before he finally spoke again.

"I am not worried, but I know that even something that is dead can still kill you. One of my ancestors fought against the Rachni and he told me stories about how the corpse of a Rachni could appear to be dead only to strike one final time before passing into the embrace of oblivion."

I looked at him briefly before deadpanning, "You're full of cheerful sentiments today aren't you?"

I heard a low growl coming from Graul's general direction, "No, but I am wary of setting foot on a ship where whatever attacked it might still be hiding nearby and we can't see it."

The elevator stopped just as I began to reply, "That makes a lot of sense, you're going to keep me appraised if you see anything... odd, alright?"

I watched as Graul gave a short nod, and he mumbled, "As long as it isn't trying to kill me you mean, then I get to shoot it first."

I gave a chuckle and let him through the doors first as we walked onto the lower most deck, and by extension, the shuttle bay.

As I walked to the hangar doors Graul's massive frame blocked my view of them, but once he stepped through the doors I was greeted with a fairly close facsimile to the Normandy SR2's own hangar, save for the fact that there was much more space dedicated to a more box shaped hangar dominated by not two, but three Kodiaks painted a stark white with Cerberus' traditional black and yellow trim, as well as the Cerberus iconography emblazoned on the sides in black and yellow. There were a few crates off to either side of the entrance to the hangar itself, but the hangar door had nothing near it, and what few crates that were in the hangar were all strapped down with cargo netting or locked down with shipping straps. I saw that one of the Kodiaks had a small crowd of people near it, and my immediate thought was that they were part of the marine contingent aboard the _Fury_ , but looking closer I noticed that Kai Leng was off to one side running his Omni-tool along the edge of his sword, and an Asari was casually leaning against the opposite end of the crate with her own sword as she ran her own Omni-tool across its edge, and in mild fascination I watched as she picked up a very bulky looking sheath and simply slid the Katana in through its end with a practiced ease before tying it to her armored waist with an ornate knot and a soft metallic click as it touched the side of her leg. Further down the bay I noticed a pair of humans talking to a Turian in Copperhead combat armor, an absurdly tall Turian at that since I figured he possibly didn't have to do much to look me in the eye, possibly just stand on the end of his toes or the front of his feet.

Then of course, there was the Salarian standing in the shadow of the Kodiak in the boarding position, he was wearing a combat uniform similar to the armor Kirrahe wore on Vermire, save for the all to common white color scheme, although I had to admit that the appearance of wearing his species' equivalent of a trench coat, not that he actually needed one being an amphibian, but considering it was probably made from a heavy fabric woven with graphene between the layers of cloth, it was probably more of a functional choice than an aesthetic one, although the fact he was casually fiddling with the side of a Mantis made him look bored out of his mind. I did however notice another human wearing a full Amp suit, and that meant he was a Cerberus Dragoon.

A short time later we were all sitting in the back of a Kodiak, all of us were silent, and even I was being silent. I was mostly worried about listening to the radio in my helmet for any kind of information about the Hecate cruiser we were going to be entering, but I was going to be hearing that from a far different source than what I was expecting.

I listened to the squad's radio chatter, which was practically nil aside from the occasional joke that was usually spread out between the two human passengers across from me, but other than that it was silent, and then I heard a man's voice, presumably the pilot.

"Sergeant Ikkris, I have a faint mass effect field showing up in what's left of that cruiser's hangar, do you want me to put down there?"

I listened as Sergeant Ikkris, the Turian I saw in the _Fury's_ hangar, say something about it being too easy, and shortly after that he ordered the pilot to land in the hangar, and after maybe a minute the pilot said something rather unexpected.

"Sir, my sensors are picking up a solid atmosphere readout of Oxygen and Nitrogen, no signs of contaminants other than CO2, but I would still suggest keeping the helmets on since we don't know what the rest of the ship is like. I'll be the first to say that there aren't many working lights out there folks, so I suggest either IRV, or firing up those tac-lights."

"Understood Angel, keep the engines hot, and grab the second team, then head for the fighter bay, we'll get it open ASAP even if we have to get Tiyana to rebuild half the bay."

The pilot said, "You got it sir, don't take too long though because this place is creeping me out."

Sergeant Ikkris replied, "I don't see why, it's just another wreck Angel, if nothing else you can always head back and explain why you did so to the Captain."

"No thanks sir, I'll take my chances out here."


	4. Storm Front Part 2

"Mass Effect: Another Illusive Man – Storm Front (Part 2)

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own the Mass Effect series or its affiliated products, Bioware and its affiliates, or any other series'/copyrighted item I may mention.

**Author's note: Well, it's been a while since I've actually updated this story, and I do feel horrible about it. So... I suppose I owe you guys/gals an explanation, to be entirely honest I lost motivation to continue it and I took a break from working specifically on this story to write A LOT of others which I will be posting eventually including a Warhammer 40000 story which has some seriously chaotic lore in origin (bad pun I know), but rest assured I'll be trying to get the progress going on this even if it takes another year to write it all down and sift through things. Well, that and every time I worked on this chapter I ended up scrapping over half of it simply because it sounded horrible when I read it over, and frankly it still sounds horrible when I read it because I'm the author... so you can guess how that works.**

"Talking"- normal conversation will not have any changes

" _Talking_ "-characters thinking to themselves OR are mentally conversing (telepathy, facial expressions, etc.) will be in Italic in normal speech format, written words will be in bold as well

* * *

I was surprised by the friendly banter that Sergeant Ikkris managed to weasel into conversations between himself and our pilot, who's call sign was apparently Angel, and that kind of banter between anyone in this line of work usually meant that they had been working together for a long time, or at least managed to get protocol out of the way until things really hit the fan, and that seemed the most likely case once we reached the door closest to us since it went from witty banter to strictly what would be construed as 'serious conversation' as he switched from the casual conversation to a more serious tone as he ordered the Asari I had noted back in the _Fury's_ shuttle bay to begin working on the door's controls, after the good Sergeant had failed to get it open on the first two tries, one of which had him running what would have been considered a 'simple' bypass with his Omni-tool alone with a hacking program running.

We were more or less just standing around waiting for the door to open, the Dragoon was taking a casual stroll around us moving from one pile of debris or neatly stacked crates to another in an idle fashion, the Salarian was sweeping over the opposite side of the hangar with his Mantis, all the while the rest of us were surveying our immediate surroundings save for Sergeant Ikkris who was currently watching the Asari as she worked on the door, and after about two or three minutes of waiting the doors slid open, one of which stopped halfway to its side of its doorframe and the other had shorted out about an inch from the other side with a spectacular shower of sparks as a panel blew off of the wall inside the hangar a few feet away, presumably the result of what could have been secondary damage sustained in combat against whatever attacked the Hecate cruiser, or a power surge through a damaged conduit.

"Good work Alessia."

"Thank you Sergeant, but I would have been done two minutes ago if the electrical components weren't such a mess."

It was a statement that wasn't out of place considering how the interior of the ship looked, let alone its exterior, but it was how she had an annoyed tone, albeit a minor one, that caught my attention and leaned my head to the right so I could give a casual glance at the door as I commented to Sergeant Ikkris.

"I can't say I'm a fan of being on this ship longer than necessary, but I would be surprised if this was the only one we will need to bypass."

"You're probably be right, especially if this ship looks as bad as the hangar and the external hull."

* * *

A brief moment later we were all walking down a corridor, a corridor that was virtually identical to the one we had just spent two minutes walking down to get to where we were, we were standing outside of a door that was labeled ' **Galley'** and according to what information we had on Geneva class cruisers it was essentially a shortcut across the deck we were on in order to get to a secondary CIC on the same deck, which in practice meant that we were about to enter a room with little to no cover or concealment with what could possibly be a small army inside for all we knew. In a matter of seconds we were in breach positions on either side of the door, with myself being third in line on the left of the door Talon in one hand and a primed Omni-tool in the other with an thumb sitting over the activation key to let an Overload loose at the first enemy I saw. Two seconds of waiting at the door and we got the signal to enter the galley which was given in the form of Alessia opening the door remotely by Omni-tool bypass and one by one we filed in sweeping the room, fully alert to any form of threat, but what we found was far worse than a bunch of armed marines or crewmen. What we found instead was a cafeteria that had been turned into a slaughterhouse.

Crewmen of both genders were strewn about the cafeteria in various states of dismemberment and death, marines had apparently formed a makeshift barricade behind the serving counter in the kitchen itself and outside its entrances, and their last stand had obviously failed. The marines themselves were armored in equipment similar to what the Hecate organization had thrown at Cronos Station's defenses but they had obvious improvements in personal weaponry in the form of Katana series shotguns with integrated bayonets and the bulkier exterior casing hinting at larger mass accelerators, Vindicator assault rifles of several variants, Avengers that looked like they were heavily modified with many of them sporting actual bayonets instead of Omni-blade attachments and a few with bulky gyrostabilizers, Carnifex heavy pistols and more than a few Tempest submachineguns were scattered about the kitchen in small caches alongside additional grenades. The entire scene was enough to make me cringe inwardly at the sheer brutality as it appeared to have been mostly created by brutal melee combat as indicated by several of the Hecate personnel being physically ripped apart. I was barely paying attention to our surroundings as Sergeant Ikkris gave a hand signal for the squad to begin checking the bodies. I slowly walked toward the kitchen to check the Hecate marines there and what I saw was not much better than in the cafeteria itself, but there were many indications that whatever happened here was not only a brutal melee, but also a nearly surgical ranged assault as well. A series of scorch marks were present in several areas of the kitchen that were made in extremely neat, straight lines that had been melted into the sides of cabinets, countertops, and the armor of the Hecate personnel in the kitchen. I spent about five minutes looking through the kitchen when I saw something off about a Hecate marine that wasn't wearing a helmet. Upon closer inspection I could see faint lines under the skin that immediately brought to mind a scene from Mass Effect 3, and it wasn't something I wanted to think about, but the more I examined the marine's face the more I felt a growing sense of dread building in the pit of my stomach before I finally grabbed the marine's chest armor by a piece of metal plate that was just beneath his chin and tossed him onto the serving counter and called Kai Leng over.

I wasn't too surprised when Kai Leng arrived shortly after I had called, but it was the fact that he immediately commented on the marine's face not looking right that caught my attention.

"I know it doesn't look right Kai Leng, what do you make of it?"

Kai Leng leaned in slightly before pushing the marine's cheek slightly with a pair of fingers as he answered.

"It looks like cybernetics, subdermal obviously, but possibly more invasive than what Phantoms, or even some N7's go through. I would suggest bringing a corpse back for examination when we head back to the _Fury_ , after all the first rule of war is to know your enemy, right?"

I leaned back slightly while making a motion Kai Leng had once mentioned indicated the intention to have a private conversation and then I used my Omni-tool to open up a private channel with Kai Leng and said, "That may be the case Kai Leng, but the worst scenario I can come up with regarding this marine's cybernetics is something that I would _really_ not want to deal with from an organization like Hecate."

I could hear Kai Leng start to say something over the radio but that was when we both heard a muffled scream come from across the room as Alessia was crawling away from a marine that moved suddenly in a jerky and mechanical fashion.

* * *

"Goddess! He's alive!?"

I heard Sergeant Ikkris yell, "Calm Down Alessia, we're coming!"

The next thing I knew Kai Leng and I were across the cafeteria floor weapons at the ready and looking at what was apparently a badly wounded Hecate marine that barely moved beyond a few clawing gestures at Alessia and ourselves. Judging from the way he looked he wouldn't last long and the immediate thing that came to mind was to just put a round in him out of mercy considering he was missing everything from the knees down from what looked like a single powerful slash from a melee weapon of some kind that mostly cauterized the wounds on his legs, although the holes in his chest plate was a different matter entirely, and judging from the blood on the floor he wouldn't be making it very far if we did help him. It took around a minute but we managed to calm the marine down and found out what happened, the cruiser was attacked, that was literally all he could say for certain other than the fact that the ship was boarded somehow and he was on the floor of the hallway bleeding out before he knew what hit him for about three minutes until he was dragged into the cafeteria by a pair of crew ratings and then nothing. He simply started spouting what was more or less gibberish at that point, as he went on and on about lights that heralded death and screams of the damned announcing the arrival of impossibly fast shadows that reduced armored soldiers to little more than a red smear on the floor along with remnants of their armor with flashes of light, which from what we found in the galley it was an accurate enough piece of information detailing aftereffects but not solid information about who attacked the ship.

We stood there for a moment, Alessia was still on edge but relatively calm, the Salarian member of our team was taking nervous glances around the mess hall section of the galley, and Kai Leng was even a little unnerved as best as could be described but I immediately guessed that he was more or less surprised by the supposed number of boarders he had estimated had been involved in the attack on the Hecate cruiser due to a ship this size requiring in the neighborhood of five hundred or more personnel to operate effectively, on the other hand however, Graul took it in stride after saying that this was nothing compared to what the Blood Pack could do.

The rest of us however were suffering from mixed reactions ranging from shock to outright disgust at the sheer ferocity displayed in the attack, even if the personnel belonged to an enemy of our organization, because despite our being enemies there was still that unspoken rule about what was considered 'civilized' warfare, and there was nothing civilized about the brutality committed to the personnel on this ship.

What happened next was more or less an unspoken agreement to leave this all behind as fast as we could since we all began to file out of the room as quickly as possible and as Kai Leng left the room the door closed behind, sealing away the horrors we saw behind us as we continued our sweep of the cruiser.

* * *

Narrator's POV

Further toward the aft of the cruiser a squad of Hecate troopers in their black armor moved down a dimly lit corridor at a rapid pace checking every door and corridor with an air of apprehension and fear, which marked them as survivors of the attack. As they stopped at hallway intersections and any open or responding doorways to do quick sweeps they continued running through the darkened or at least damaged corridors of the ship. These soldiers were moving with a sense of purpose that typical shipboard marine contingents lacked in terms of cohesion and fluidity of movement and through that it was quite obvious they were under very specific orders, and they had charges already in place in thirty four locations in the ship, all there was left for them to accomplish was to commence an onsite purge of the ship's data cores, and most importantly acquire projects from the field laboratory a few dozen meters away from them while a secondary team finished their objectives.

After about three minutes of a swift jog the soldiers stood in front of massive two foot thick titanium reinforced steel blast doors that were proof against almost any form of hacking software, nearly impervious to any known cutting implement in Alliance or Citadel space, and yet they had been ripped open and bent inward toward the interior of the lab with several areas having sloughed off to the metal flooring after being cut by what an experienced engineering technician could have guessed was some form of laser or thermal cutting beam on a scale of power never seen before in man-portable systems.

As the team filed through the doors in two rows they swept the room anxiously for a target to appear and yet all they found were more dead scientists and marines but in stark contrast to being dead for hours each one of them had been dead mere minutes or even less based upon the smoke still curling in the air from several gaping holes in the armor of Hecate troopers and steaming stumps where heads or limbs used to reside, and at the end of the main corridor before it branched off into a four-way intersection, just after the security station the Hecate troops now found themselves in, there were five massive humanoid figures, one of which carried a simple staff that from a distance would have been reminiscent of a metal shod quarter staff were it not for the hairline cracks in its black casing that let loose a faint but noticeably malevolent orange glow. In that glow the five figures were given shape some details such as loose robes dangling from long limbs and a slightly hunched body could be seen, but all the light reflecting off of the metallic armor that covered each figure from head to toe even beneath the robes quashed any notion that they were survivors if their massive size didn't, but perhaps the most striking feature was the fact that six eyes could be seen from beneath the hood each figure wore. The other feature that caught the attention of the onlookers were the two sets of arms each figure had, one set was large and bulky, the other set was smaller and spindly, both sets were partially hidden by the cloth robes but were given away by their shape and the faint glint of holographic lighting similar to active Omni-tools.

The figure in the middle partially turned in order to face the Hecate marines, and after a moment of silent appraisal before five shimmering fields of pitch black crackling with energy ripped their way into existence behind them. With an almost mechanical gait four of the five figures stepped into the portals, and the fifth raised an arm revealing a holographic tool similar to an Omni-tool as well, and with a squeeze of its hand the technological marvel on its hand flashed a sickly yellow three times in rapid succession as its owner hurried through its own portal with but a single step. Within seconds the five vortexes had dissipated, and another second after that explosions had erupted from within the laboratories off to the sides and down the hall leaving thick oily smoke spilling from within each room causing fire suppression systems to flood the area with compressed carbon dioxide foam and a blaring alarm began to sound, and each second that the soul piercing sound of the alarm was emitted there was an accompanying flash of red lighting before additional explosions ripped through the security station after a high pitched whine was heard from the left of the squad drawing their attention to a triangular device that expanded its three points outward before emitting a hissing noise filling its immediate vicinity with a phosphorescent white gas as a spark jumped from the three points. As those three sparks, one from each point on the object, entered the small cloud of gas it turned into a fireball that spread white hot shrapnel and produced a shockwave that tore through the room pulping all of the Hecate personnel within causing more fire suppressant to be released from now damaged nozzles in the ceiling.

Little did anyone on the ship know that a member of the second Cerberus squad attempting to acquire computer files and navigation records as well as communication logs received a series of automated emergency calls for aid at the console they were accessing. In the secondary CIC said second boarding party from the _Fury_ was slowly infiltrating the remaining databanks that hadn't been purged or physically destroyed, and upon seeing the automated alarms spontaneously being triggered, along with alarms signifying a major security breach, in a seemingly unimportant section of the cruiser's interior according to what little knowledge they had about the Alliance's cruiser designs, immediately radioed the only other squad on the ship.

* * *

Ian's POV

We had just finished reaching yet another intersection that was the same as the one we were in only minutes before, and we were all beginning to see a pattern to the dead Hecate crewmembers and marines. Either they were herded into what would be considered good defensive positions and slaughtered en masse, or hunted by someone or something utilizing bladed weapons with the occasional indication of some sort of heat or energy based weaponry.

At the moment however we had all stopped as Sergeant Ikkris was trying to get a solid line of communication up with the second team of marine boarders from the _Fury_ , which in comparison to the team that I was with, had made it to their first objective after landing on the opposite side of the hangar we had entered from and had found a far clearer path in contrast to our own which was filled with blocked passageways, corpses, and burning debris at almost every turn. Granted the other team had similar obstacles as well they were far less numerous than the ones we had found in the upper decks, even chancing upon a functioning elevator that left them on the deck just below the cruiser's secondary CIC.

Eventually as we stood waiting we finally heard Sergeant Ikkris speak.

"Well it is official, the ship's internals are actively designed to jam anything meant to contact anyone that is not using the internal communication network for external contact, but from what our other team reported there is something big going on in the rear of the ship, which is where they're betting those explosions came from, and the area isn't even mentioned on this ship's onboard schematics so this cruiser might be a mobile black site. That said, they reported both fire and intruder alarms being triggered at the same time so we're going in heavy, I want that Claymore of yours at the front Urdnot so if you see anything with Hecate armor you kill it and shoot to maim the last one of them that's standing so we can get an idea about what happened here. Alessia, Monroe, and Clarence you're on my six. Sir, you and the operative stay behind the rest of us until we're engaged because either you're going to be flanking or covering our retreat if things get too hot. Furthermore they have reported that there is another anomaly in the ship's internal structure on deck five according to the ship's schematics, it's big enough for a small cargo bay, perhaps even a hangar of some kind. Kotlin, you are on solo recon because according to the security feeds they managed to bring up at their location the path is clear the entire way with a lot of alternate access points you can use. As for the rest of you, you know the drill, we have to backtrack fifty meters then we need to head aftward for a hundred more so it's officially time to haul ass."

I watched as Sergeant Ikkris laid out what I could only describe as half a plan, but considering the situation we found ourselves in, not to mention we were on a cruiser that could potentially be crawling with Hecate personnel, it was essentially a textbook and professional example of 'winging it' because there wasn't a clearly defined situation any amount of training that covered everything in detail, and we could account for somewhere around fifty personnel in the galley we had passed through with what could have been an additional thirty or so as scattered pieces of charred flesh and bone littering the corridors we had passed through, and to make matters worse the Salarian, Kotlin as he was apparently named, had moved ahead of us to find the primary CIC. The description he had given in regards to the condition of the CIC and what was left of the command staff that had been in it at the time the cruiser was attacked suggested that the CIC was breached by armed assailants toting some form of high powered weapon system that could cut through a steel blast door that was nearly half a meter thick quickly enough to surprise the personnel around the ship and inside the CIC before returning, which clearly ruled out every known government or organization in the galaxy with the exception of the Salarians and the Asari who created some of the most powerful and smallest ship mounted GARDIAN lasers. I of course thought of another possibility, but I hadn't seen any sort of indication of either the Geth or those of a Reaper being around, such as the telltale hints in the form of Husks and Dragon's Teeth, let alone bits of Geth combat platforms.

Kotlin had only just met up with us again after going to the primary CIC, but he began to walk off in the direction we were originally moving before we had stopped for the information the second team had sent us, giving a silent wave of his hand as he went just before he disappeared through an archway formed from some fallen support beams and ceiling panels. Then everyone else began to walk toward the rear of the ship.

I did find myself briefly considering another possible answer to the entire situation as I moved to keep pace with everyone else as they jogged down the corridor we had just walked down only minutes before, but I wasn't sure if I should be laughing at the absurdity of it or if I should be taking a moment to think over the possibility that this ship had been boarded by its supposed owners in an attempt to seize it from another faction in their organization, a situation that made me wonder exactly what was so important about this ship specifically and more importantly it made me consider what would happen if Harper ever tried to stab me in the back during the Reaper invasion, and whether or not I would eventually have to choose between Shepherd or the friends I may make in the future at Cerberus.

Personally I found the choice of siding with either Shepherd or Cerberus to be a no-brainer along with dragging anyone I could kicking and screaming to the Alliance, Shepherd would be the one to take the prize on that joke of a question hands down, but the problem I had with that possible situation is that it might end up being something that could be completely situational since I only saw a file on Shepherd and didn't know her personally, so for all I knew she could be a good person that turns into someone worse than Saren in comparison to the Shepherd I was hoping I was going to be meeting eventually. I was seriously hoping for a paragon Shepherd with a renegade streak since a purely paragon path was restrictive, but a more... objective view on the galaxy at large might be preferable to some of the interactions allowed in the series. In retrospect however... a psych eval could only tell you so much about a person on paper and not their real reactions to a situation under true stress.

It didn't take long before I was further lost in thought before the sound of gunfire somewhere in the depths of the ship caught my attention, and after seeing that everyone was on full alert and taking positions behind archways and any form of cover that was available, and in that brief moment I was sharing a piece of cover with Alessia as Sergeant Ikkris' voice sounded over our helmet radios.

"Move up, cover formation and don't stay in the middle of the corridor."

With a simple command we moved up the corridor toward the gunfire, and during the time we took to get there it had slackened considerably to the point of being sporadic to almost non-existent but steady paired shots leaving us with a fairly good idea as to what was happening. That idea was that someone was more than likely mopping up survivors.

Coming up to where we thought the shots were coming from, a man judging from their size and build beneath the heavy armor they were wearing had exited a doorway on the left side of the corridor with a weapon I didn't recognize beyond superficial resemblances to what was called a bull-pup rifle from back home but with a few notable differences like the obvious form of a square cooling system that clearly relied on a cooling jacket, or the cold of space, replacing the entirety of the barrel. Then again the odd neon red glow from the inside of the weapon was a little surprising, but the equally surprising speed with which they moved their weapon was enough to throw us into action, making us dive for cover just as a crimson beam swept its way across the corridor with a long drawn out hiss created by the crackling of electrical discharge before a bolt of energy flew past us and impacted several meters behind us in a spectacular display of light and sound. Whatever they had fired was clearly highly ionized, and from what little I knew about physics coupled with my faint interest in electronics back when I was in school told me plenty as my helmet's HUD started to blink and fade before resuming its normal appearance.

That was when Graul fired his Claymore with a resounding boom sending the Hecate soldier scurrying back into cover as bits of the hallway's left wall fell off in an impressive shower of cracked, perforated, or outright shredded metal plating as lights and even a few smaller supports gave way to a hailstorm of tungsten steel shards. The amount of damage was enough to make even Graul do a double take as he activated his Omni-shield and stuck to cover to the opposite side the hallway from Sergeant Ikkris.

I called out over the radio on the squad's battle-net with most of it being directed toward Sergeant Ikkris, "Sergeant, I think that is an ion weapon, capturing it intact is secondary, threat is primary, repeat eliminate Tango, collateral is acceptable!"

Sergeant Ikkris looked in my general direction from the archway he stood behind and with a sharp nod toward me he pulled a cylindrical object the size of a small flashlight I used to have for emergencies back in England and I immediately guessed it as a smoke grenade, but then I remembered exactly what I had said as he loaded it into the underslung launcher on his Harrier Mk I. In one fluid motion he clicked the launcher closed again with a quick command to Alessia and one of the other Troopers to lay down suppressing fire which they obliged eagerly. Without giving an order to stop firing Sergeant Ikkris fired a blind burst from his Harrier toward the doorway the Hecate soldier was hiding in once again, just before he braced it firmly against his shoulder and launched the supposed smoke grenade toward the door's arch only for it to stick to the archway's surface with a solid clanging noise just before detonating in a horrific display of sparks and flame. The next thing that happened was like a slice of Hell, the soldier was definitely hit by the explosion, and he was flailing about like a madman as his armor began to melt. The sight itself was enough to make me take a quick peek at the archway which was seriously warped and to a lesser extent still burning in areas which immediately reminded me of something I saw in an old war movie, thermite.

It was a stomach churning experience, but Graul topped it off with a blast from his Claymore... the aftereffects were clearly gut wrenching but easily summed up as a red smear on the deck plating with chunks of meat and metal littering its surface as a fine and sometimes equally chunky rain of red fell to the deck in the wake of the soldier's screams. Sergeant Ikkris made a comment under his breath that I couldn't hear but Graul shrugged it off, Alessia and several others in the squad including myself forced down an urge to vomit judging from their postures and movements as we began to move up, Kai Leng on the other hand nonchalantly flicked a bit of red coated metal off of his helmet after making a comment on the lines of, "This reminds me of that one raid on Torfan... that as... entertaining.", and it was clear that Kai Leng's comment sent shivers down everyone's collective spines.

There were however no more hostiles nearby, nor were there any indications of where the gunfire was coming from, or at least there wasn't until we made it another ten meters down the hallway as a woman in Hecate armor was thrown bodily into a wall with enough force from within a room that the metal wall actually buckled, and she stayed there as it had happened in such a way that the plating actually held her in place. Graul and Sergeant Ikkris both exchanged a quick glance before moving forward, Sergeant Ikkris moved forward with his Harrier up and giving a quick hand signal to move up quietly. An order Graul surprisingly listened to and waited at the corner of the door. While moving up with the rest of the squad however I noticed a bit of iconography on the wall, a white hexagon containing a dull grey circle with an eye in its center, along with a phrase in what I assumed was Latin running around it in a dark blue with only a couple words I could make out from memory, most notably of which being the words, "The prepared mind." but the rest was lost in translation as I was never very good at translating things from anything that wasn't from my understanding of German, with a far lesser understanding written and spoken Japanese, not to mention the main Spanish dialect from Spain, I could certainly throw insults well enough in those languages however.

I was caught off-guard by what Graul said over the squad battle-net however.

Graul said over the radio, "That's a lot of bodies, but whoever did this was brutal by even my standards."

I used a free hand to access my helmet's radio, "What's going on up there Sergeant?"

"We found... a lot of bodies like the Krogan said. This wasn't clean like in the ship's Mess though and whatever did this wanted it to be done as cruelly as possible, but I don't see any indication as to who could have done this."

Sergeant Ikkris sounded over the squad's battle-net, "Alright everyone, eyes sharp and if you see anything moving let us know first, then engage. Also, don't look in here because it makes what we found in the Mess look humane."

There was a variety of affirmative answers as we began to move up the corridor again, but as I passed the room I noticed something very wrong inside the room.

"Sergeant, did you secure the room?"

Sergeant Ikkris replied over the radio, "No, just a basic visual sweep. Why?"

"Sergeant, I'll be a moment."

"Sir wai-... Damn it, Mikael cover him."

Toward the rear of the squad the armored form of the Cerberus Dragoon gave a gruff affirmative and moved quickly with long clanking strides as he moved to follow me.

I was busy giving what I had noticed a quick onceover, and reached out to move a dead Hecate scientist, or at least someone I assumed was one considering they were wearing a lab coat.

I looked over my shoulder and said, "Mikael was it? Stay out of my way unless I actually need help, at least for now at any rate, but if you really want to secure the room properly I won't argue the point, however you will need to tell me if you find whoever belongs to this..."

With my right hand I lifted what looked like an oxygen mask from off of the floor, the same kind I remembered seeing in Cronos Station's medical facilities after the attack last year when I was stuck in post-surgery recovery for almost a week, which was the bare minimum requirement considering the medical technology available to Cerberus and the rest of the galaxy at large.

"Sir... I think I already found them."

I turned to look toward Mikael, and I was a bit surprised to see him kneeling down to check on someone laying on the ground with an active Omni-tool to scan for vitals. I was even more surprised when I ended up catching his full body weight along with that of his armor in my torso sending us both to the floor with the loud clattering bang of metal hitting metal.


End file.
